THE THEATRICAL 'WORLD'
OF 1895.
UNIFORM WITH THE PRESENT VOLUME.
Price 3/6 per vol.
THE THEATRICAL WORLD FOR 1893.
By WILLIAM ARCHER. With an Epistle Dedica-
tory to MR. ROBERT W. LOWE.
THE THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1894.
By WILLIAM ARCHER. With an Introduction by
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW ; an Epilogue by the
Author; and a Synopsis of Playbills of 1894,
compiled by HENRY GEORGE HIBBERT.
Both the above Vols. contain complete Indices of the
Plays, Authors, Actors, Actresses. Managers, Critics, etc.,
referred to.
THE
*
THEATRICAL^ 3RLD'
OF 1895.
BY
WILLIAM ARCHER.
WITH A PREFATORY LETTER
BY ARTHUR W. PINERO,
AND A SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS OF THE YEAR
BY HENRY GEORGE HIBBERT.
LONDON :
WALTER SCOTT, LTD.,
PATERNOSTER SQUf**r
/^Ajjix ov^v mixj^j
1896. MICROFORMED
P^ELERVATIO
.^ nnn 4
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFATORY LETTER, BY MR. ARTHUR W. PINERO - xi
AUTHOR'S NOTE ... ...
I.
THE PANTOMIMES " SLAVES OF THE RING" - - i
II.
"THYRZA FLEMING" 12
III.
" AN IDEAL HUSBAND "----- 14
IV.
"KING ARTHUR" "Guv DOMVILLE" - 20
V.
"AN INNOCENT ABROAD " " HIGH LIFE BELOW
STAIRS" "A PAIR OF SPECTACLES" - 35
VI.
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL" - - - 37
VII.
"A\ ARTIST'S MODEL" 41
VIII.
" A LEADER OF MEN " 47
vi CONTENTS.
IX. PAGE
"THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST"
"THOROUGH-BRED" "AN M.P.'s WIFE" - 56
X.
" GENTLEMAN JOE" - - 62
XI.
THE CENSORSHIP - 65
XII.
" SOWING THE WIND " - - 74
XIII.
"THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH"- - - 75
XIV.
" MRS. EBBSMITH " AGAIN " A LOVING LEGACY "
"SALVE" "THE BLUE BOAR" 86
XV.
THEATRE AND MUSIC-HALL 96
XVI.
"L'CEuvRE" 104
XVII.
THE MAETERLINCK WEEK - in
XVIII.
"THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME" - - - - 119
CONTENTS. VII
XIX. PAGE
"FANNY" "DELIA HARDING "" THE LADIES'
IDOL" "THE SHOP-GIRL" - - 123
'
XX.
"VANITY FAIR" "THE PASSPORT" 132
XXI.
"THE STORY OF WATERLOO "" DON QUIXOTE "-
" JOHN-A-DREAMS" - ... 137
XXII.
" THE HOME SECRETARY " H4
XXIII.
" THE TRIUMPH OF THE PHILISTINES "THE SECOND
MRS. EBBSMITH - - - - ' - - 152
XXIV.
" THE DEFEAT OF THE PURITANS " ... 164
XXV.
"FEDORA" - - 172
XXVI.
SIR HENRY IRVING .... . - 180
XXVI I.
" THE PRUDE'S PROGRESS " "GISMONDA" - - 181
XXVIII.
EI.EONORA DUSE 188
Vlii CONTENTS.
XXIX. I'AGE
"HEIMAT" ----,--- 193
XXX.
THE RIVAL QUEENS ....... 202
XXXI.
"LA PRINCESSE LOIXTAIXE" " DIE EHRE" - - 209
XXXII.
THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY .... 219
XXXIII.
SUDERMANN " MlSS BROWN '' " THE RAILROAD
CF LOVE " - 226
XXXIV.
"THE Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA" "MA
COUSINE" - 234
XXXV.
" A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM " - - - - 243
XXXVI.
"ALL ABROAD'' "QwoNG-Hi" .... 253
XXXVII.
"A YOUNGSTER'S ADVENTURE" -"NEW YORK
DIVORCE " 260
XXXVIII.
"THE SWORDSMAN'S DAUGHTER" - - - - 261
CONTENTS. IX
XXXIX. PAGE
"ALABAMA" - - - 267
XL.
"BOGEY" "THE CHILI WIDOW" - 275
XLI.
" ROMEO AND JULIET" ... - - 284
XLI I.
" ROMEO AND JULIET" AGAIN " CHEER, BOYS,
CHEER" "!N A LOCKET" 295
XLIII.
" HER ADVOCATE" - - 303
XLIV.
"POOR MR. POTION" 308
XLV.
"THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT" - - - -313
XLVI.
"THE RISE OF DICK HALWARD" - - - - 321
XL VI I.
" TRILBY " " THE LORD MAYOR''" MRS. PONDER-
BURY'S PAST" - - - - - - 328
XLVIII.
"THE SQUIRE OF DAMES" "A TRILBY TRIFLET" 337
X CONTENTS.
XLIX. PAGE
"THE RIVALS'" "NANNIE" "A MODEL TRILBY"
"MERRIFIELD'S GHOST" 346
L.
"THE DIVIDED WAY" - ... 353
LI.
"THE MANXMAN" "THE MISOGYNIST "" AN
OLD GARDEN" 361
LII.
"THE COMEDY OF ERRORS" .... 366
LI 1 1.
" THE GREATEST OF THESE " MADAME "
" KITTY CLIVE (ACTRESS)" .... 374
LIV.
"ONE OF THE BEST" - 378
EPILOGUE 383
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS, BY MR. HENRY G.
HIBBERT - - 397
INDEX 437
PREFATORY LETTER.
MY DEAR ARCHER,
Your constant readers will not have
forgotten that you preface The TJieatrical World
for 1893 with an Epistle Dedicatory to your
friend Mr. Robert W. Lowe ; and they may
remember also that in the course of this Epistle,
when you recall the pleasant hours spent in his
company in the pit of the Princess's Theatre
in Edinburgh, you remind Mr. Lowe that, just
previous to those joint experiences in that shabby
little play-house, the more important Theatre
Royal had been destroyed by fire, and that
among the burnt-out actors was one whose name
my own crops up pretty frequently in the
record which follows your Epistle. To some
readers this passage may have conveyed little
more than the suggestion of a desire on your
part to preserve Mr. Lowe from the hideous
charge, which otherwise might have been pre-
ferred against him, of contentedly frequenting
xii PREFATORY LETTER.
the pit of a theatre of inferior rank. To save
Mr. Lowe's character ay, and with the same
stroke of the pen, your own was perhaps your
object ; but, with me, you succeeded in going
further, for by the mere mention of my name in
association with that ill-fated Theatre Royal
and with those stricken actors who, on a
gloriously- fine February afternoon, silently
turned their backs upon its smouldering shell,
you contrived to stir my heart to a peculiar beat.
Edinburgh !
I am not, as you are aware, a Scotsman.
My affection for Edinburgh, my heart -jump
at the sound of the name of that splendid
capital, do not spring from the natural, in-
herited love of country of which Scotsmen, and
especially Scottish writers, assert the possession
with an energy and persistency which, I fear,
have caused many a Southerner to throw up
patriotism in sheer despair. But it was in Edin-
burgh I "began life" if I can at all mark such
a period, for " life " began with me very early.
It was in Edinburgh on a melancholy, mys-
terious, humid night in the month of June, one
thousand eight hundred and seventy-four that
I was born, just outside the Waverley Railway
Station, to the troubles and rewards of a
PREFATORY LETTER. Xlii
theatrical career. Had this (to me) interesting
event occurred in Wigan or Bolton, I suppose
Wigan or Bolton would have stood in my regard
much as Edinburgh stands to-day. And yet
I am glad I was born, at nineteen years of age,
in Edinburgh ; I rejoice, my dear Archer, that it
was in Edinburgh.
Just outside the Waverley Railway Station
my infant eyes, having first taken in the deplor-
ably wet and dirty pavement, sought the sky.
Where the sky, according to observations made
in a previous existence, should have been, I saw,
suspended in the dripping mist, the illuminated
windows of those wonderful, high " lands "
a spectacle which, I agree with you, forms at
night-time one of the most surprising sights in
your beautiful city. On my other hand, the
lamps of Princes Street, each blurred light cast-
ing an evil-looking halo, ran away in a regular,
diminishing line : towards Princes Street I
turned my steps, wearied, mystified, saddened.
For I was born, at nineteen years of age, to no
great fortune only to the modest and tem-
porary competency of a six weeks' engagement
at the Theatre Royal, for " general utility," at a
salary of one pound a week. I had lately parted
too in my previous existence from a mother
xiv PREFATORY LETTER.
who was weeping and from two sisters who were
preparing to do so ; and I was moreover harassed
and perplexed by the possession of the heaviest,
most cumbersome travelling-trunk which has
ever, I truly believe, bent the back of a railway-
porter. The exorbitant tips this wretched box
cost me on the day of my second birth, and
thereafter, defy computation. It was of oak,
and was bound in massive iron clamps which
rusted and wounded the fingers ; and it was
the most obstinate and cruelly-disposed box my
experience has brought me into contact with.
For instance, when open, its lid would hang
lazily back, supported by a chain, at a angle
which apparently made it impossible that it
should close without human aid. Yet whenever
I was unwary enough to trust my head within
its jaws, in search of some article or other lying
deep in the swallow of the beast, down would
come the lid, to strike me upon the neck, and
nearly kill me after the fashion in which a rabbit
is slain by a keeper. It played the same cowardly
trick, though with even more serious results,
upon an honest old landlady of mine, of whom
I shall by-and-by make grateful mention, to
whose hands I took an early opportunity of con-
fiding the key of the hated receptacle, investing
PREFATORY LETTER. XV
her at the same time with all attendant privileges.
Ultimately, upon her firmly renouncing these
privileges, I sold the box to a man who dealt
in discarded military uniforms, and other odds
and ends, in the Canongate at an absurdly low
figure, on account, as the purchaser urged, of
the expense of cart-hire for removal. But he
took it away at night, while I was out, and to
my chagrin I heard that he brought no cart
with him. However, he was accompanied, it
appeared, by several members of his family, and
together they staggered away with their burden.
The relief was considerable at getting quit of
the thing its absence made my room quite
spacious and yet the transaction caused me a
pang. For the buying of that box, directly I
had formed my dreadful resolution of "going
upon the stage," had, I remembered, afforded
my mother a certain small feeling of security
and comfort. Perhaps its solidity, its indubitable
age, had been as figures to her hopes, and had
given her reassurance. Or, in her anxious mind,
she attached the thing to me, from mere con-
sideration of its weight, as an anchor to a ship ;
or it may be that the circumstance of the
horrible affair having originally been a plate-
chest in a noble family the vendor offered a
XVI PREFATORY LETTER.
written warranty to this effect had some in-
fluence with her as conferring respectability, if
not dignity, upon my undertaking.
With the reluctant aid of a porter, who thought
proper to comment with dreary sarcasm upon
my precautions, I carefully consigned my box to
the Left Luggage department, and set out, afoot
towards Princes Street, as I have said to
find my hotel. Somebody, in my other life, had
warmly commended to me, on the score of
comfort and economy, an hotel situated in one
of the streets lying parallel with George Street.
I forget the name of the street ; I wished to
forget it; I destroyed the paper upon which the
title and whereabouts of the hotel were inscribed.
I never had the desire, when affairs had become
settled and comfortable with me, nor indeed the
courage, to revisit this street and identify the
hotel. Perhaps, less than a month afterwards
I could not have found the place, for I entered
it dog-tired, and in the dark, and when I left it
I was thoroughly shaken and demoralised. It
may have possessed all the advantages my friend
had claimed for it I was totally without ex-
perience, as became one newly born, in such
matters. I am inclined now to think that it was
even a ridiculously cheap establishment. But
PREFATORY LETTER. xvii
it was dear to me, poor, simple infant that
I was horridly, unexpectedly, overwhelmingly
costly. The first shock of discovery had passed
when I paid my bill, and I handled my few gold
pieces like a man in a dream. I knew at that
moment exactly how a great speculator feels
upon receiving news of utter ruin; and, oddly
enough, I have never since then found myself
able to give a first glance at an hotel bill without
feeling the same sensations, the painful catch in
the breath, the icy spine, the chill tingling in
the legs, which I endured upon discovering my
liabilities at my first hotel.
My next venture was a Temperance Hotel, in
Leith Street, kept by a Mrs. MacD with
the assistance of a spare, dry, hard-featured
daughter. Mrs. MacD 's duties were of a
kind which served to rob her boarders of the
light of her presence. I saw her but on two
occasions on my arrival, when I expressed a
desire to avail myself of the " special terms '"
mentioned in her advertisements the special
terms, in my case, resolving themselves into an
undertaking on Mrs. Mac's part (for which no
extra charge was to be made) that I should
fill the place in her affections formerly occu-
pied by a nephew who had been drowned
b
Xviii PREFATORY LETTER.
in Greenock Harbour; and, again, when I took
my departure. Giving the place a farewell look
over my shoulder as I drove away, I espied Mrs.
MacD 's crimson, wrinkled face rising from
behind a wire-blind like a shrivelled sun, and I
quailed under its malignant rays. It was a
peculiarity of Miss MacD ' 's, excused perhaps
by the fact that she was the entire visible staff
of the establishment, that her sleeves were
turned up above her elbows from morning till
night; the skin of her poor arms, I remember,
struck me as not being in the least degree a fit.
But the principal impression remaining with me of
my week with the MacD s is that the house,
from its awful bareness and frigidity, seemed to
offer every inducement to its visitors to rush out
and drink. I shared this hotel with one other
guest, an old gentleman whose general mellow-
ness made me wonder at his selecting the shelter
of such ungenial walls. One day, however, in
the course of a guarded talk with me, he let in
a faint light upon my doubts by informing me
that if you went to bed early in a Temperance
Hotel, and then rang the bell violently and
complained of sickness, the landlord or landlady
was obliged, under heavy penalty, to produce a
bottle of whisky and to leave it on a chair by your
PREFATORY LETTER. xix
bedside. Such, he assured me, is the law of
Scotland ; and he added that he would suggest,
in view of my feeling indisposed, the particular
brand of whisky known as Campbeltown that
or a blend of Campbeltown with Islay as
being the most healing form of the spirit for
an invalid.
But from my companions in the theatre I
soon learned that I was on the wrong tack
altogether in making for hotels, temperance or
otherwise; that by no means could the charges
of an hotel, however humble, obscure, and dirty
that hotel might be, be brought to agree with
the earnings of a country actor. A young actor
named G , a good, simple fellow, with whom
I formed firm friendship, gave me further en-
lightenment by informing me that only "stars"
eminent artists who travelled from town to
town, who played leading Shakespearian char-
acters, and were, therefore, enormously wealthy
ever thought of putting up at hotels, and that
the ordinary actor invariably dwelt in a modest
lodging under the watchful care of a landlady
whose views of the theatrical profession were
broad and generous. To a suitable lodging I
was speedily inducted by G . Hail to thee,
G , wheresoever thou now art ! To-night I
XX PREFATORY LETTER.
retrace my steps across the bridge that spans a
score of years to greet thee and grasp thee by
the hand !
The road to Portobello must be a familiar
one to you, my dear Archer. Often, in summer,
you must have made your way down Leith Street
passing, on your left, MacD 's Temple
of Temperance and along Greenside Street
and Greenside Place at which spot you will
have paused for a few moments reverently to
contemplate the imposing fagade of the Theatre
Royal till you had gained Leith Walk. You
will not, however, have traversed much of Leith
Walk on your journey to Portobello, for on
reaching Union Street you will, taking a sharp
turn to your right, have found yourself in
London Road; and so, pursuing this road, you
will, without another deviation, have trudged
onward, till you were startled, perhaps, in the
midst of reflection by suddenly finding the salt
of the sea greeting your nostrils. (This London
Road leads also, I venture to remind you, to
Musselburgh, and at Musselburgh, at certain
seasons, were held race-meetings which, for the
weak, possessed attractions of an irresistible
kind. But such pastimes will have presented
no allurements to one of your austere habit;
PREFATORY LETTER. XXI
you will often have enjoyed your sea-dip upon
the shelving shore of Portobello, but the evil
angel travelling, bagman-like, in the interests of
Musselburgh will, I am sure, have slunk by you
abashed.) Now, on your walks to Portobello
you will hardly have failed to observe, lying
compactly on your left, just opposite Norton
Place, a small colony of some six or seven
regular little streets, each street bearing a pretty
and suggestive title and formed of neatly-built,
somewhat dwarfish, stone tenements. The con-
struction of these little houses was peculiar.
They were obviously houses possessing one
story, but this advantage was for the eye only,
for the ingenious architect had so contrived it
that the first-floor of any one of his cottages
was not accessible to the ground-floor tenant,
unless that tenant put himself to the trouble
of walking round into the next street, where
he might gain admittance to his first-floor by
means of a toilsome flight of stairs built outside
the back of his premises. As a matter of fact,
however, the first and second floor had nothing
to do with each other, but were as twins, held
together by a vital, unseverable ligature, who
were not on speaking terms. In this way, the
first-floor of, say, Number 5 Balaclava Place
XXli PREFATORY LETTER.
became Number 10 Maryland Street, and so
forth; with the odd result that while all the
inhabitants of one side of Maryland Street were
compelled to live on the garden level, their
opposite neighbours could not come downstairs,
without finding themselves in the open air, for
the life of them.
For eight months I was a lodger at Number
Balaclava Place ; it was there I was
happier than any king in history, richer than
any South African billionaire of to-day. O
busy, cheerful, healthful times ! I have recently
been chatting with an old gentleman who spent
these same months in Edinburgh ; he professes
to distinctly remember how disagreeable the
weather was ! What nonsense ! why, it was
transcendently fine weather, the days full of
sunshine, the nights star-lit and peaceful, and
most favourable to the practice of reading into
the small hours. And if one's pockets were, on
occasions, empty well, there was all the more
room for one's hands when the frost came
as it did severely in the early autumn of
that year, you will recollect to nip them in its
jolly, teasing way. Not that my pockets were
often incapable of a little, unpretentious, tuneful
jingle, for had I not Mrs. S to instruct me
PREFATORY LETTER. xxiii
how to live, to repletion, upon the narrowest of
incomes ; how to come out, even, at the week's
end with a modest balance to the good ? Mrs.
S was my landlady. Heaven bless her !
I see her now standing at my cab door with
her apron to her eyes, if you please bidding
me good-bye and God-speed As the flyman
whipped up his horse, she threw an old silver
brooch into my lap a brooch fashioned like the
Arms of a certain great family, and bearing the
motto, "Amo." I recognised it as one of her
few treasures. The good woman had been in
service at Dalkeith Palace, and was in the enjoy-
ment, I understood, of a small pension. She
had the soft tread and subdued voice of one
once accustomed to move about vast chambers
and to seek to avoid the echoes lurking upon
broad staircases. Sometimes she would talk to
me of the Palace, especially when, upon a show-
day, I had been viewing its rich stores ; and
then she would tell me, in her habitual half-
whisper, where that door, and that, closed
against such as I, led to. And, standing in
the middle of my little room as she talked, a
light would come into her grey eyes which
seemed to make my walls recede, to enable her
even to look beyond them. Dear soul ! She
PREFATORY LETTER.
was silver-haired twenty years ago ; were I to
find myself in Balaclava Place to-morrow I
should be afraid to ask for her.
But G would never allow me to boast too
loudly of my quarters in Balaclava Place. His
landlady, he maintained, at first somewhat to
my annoyance, came nearer perfection than any
other landlady in the United Kingdom. And
by-and-by, without abating one jot of my
allegiance to Mrs. S , as my visits to G 's
lodgings became more and more frequent, I
grew to share his affection for Mrs. L .
Only in one respect did I rank his apartment
inferior to my own the pungent odour of
highly-smoked Scotch herring hung about it
constantly, appeared wedded to its spare but
tidy hangings. However, this circumstance I
soon found was not to Mrs. L 's discredit.
G 's insatiable fondness for herrings, she
explained to me confidentially, was one of the
great troubles of her life it was her heaviest
sorrow then, I fancy; she had others not long
afterwards. He, G , zvould breakfast every
morning upon the obnoxious fish, honestly
paying the penalty exacted by Mrs. L of
sitting for the rest of the day with an open
window. Keen as was this particular winter,
PREFATORY LETTER. XXV
G stuck to his herring. Once, when he
was suffering from a catarrh, I entreated him to
obtain Mrs. L 's permission that the window
should be closed. " No, no," said he, " I
wouldn't, for the world ; it's a solemn promise."
" But," I protested, " what is gained by all this
air ? There's no good result that I can detect."
" Yes," replied G , a little hopefully, " there
is. To-night, when I return from the theatre,
this room will be as sweet as a meadow. Only "
and here his voice dropped, and his chin
sank upon his breast " only, to-morrow morn-
ing I shall undo the good of to-day. I've
struggled hard against it, but ." It has
been my misfortune several times in my life to
hear men make confession of some vice, some
overmastering weakness ; their tone and bearing
have invariably been those of G upon this
occasion.
G 's open window gave him a command-
ing view of the plot of garden, about fourteen
feet by twelve, which fronted the house. Within
this enclosure two small girl-children, with curly,
straw-coloured heads, played games, and sang
songs in a broad, strange tongue, on fine days
with but little intermission from breakfast-time
till sun-down. These mites prettier children,
XXVI PREFATORY LETTER.
more daintily fashioned, more delicately tinted,
I have never seen were Mrs. L 's dolls (so
she called them), and were the pets of Maryland
Street. Passers-by seldom failed to halt at the
railings to give a nod and speak a word or
two to these miniature people ; whereupon the
mother, working about the house, would run
to the open door and stand there for a
moment jealously, to be sure that all was well.
One bright morning, upon going round to
G , I found no talking-dolls acting lady and
shopkeeper upon the worn little grass-patch.
Poor dolls ! they were ill, it appeared, in bed,
feverish ; G was out, buying toys for them,
and oranges. That evening, doll number one
died ; the next day away went doll number two,
and the grass grew over the bare places of the
garden and flourished thenceforth undisturbed.
The mother's household tasks were neglected
for a few weeks ; but by-and-by she reappeared,
with broom and pail, and with grey streaks in
her black hair, and matters went on much as
usual. But it was not deemed safe to make
any reference to those departed dolls in her
presence. Years afterwards, returning to Edin-
burgh, I went to see Mrs. L and was
received by her in G 's room. He, good
PREFATORY LETTER. XXVlt
fello\v, had vanished out of my life, and out of
the life of Maryland Street, and, worldly affairs
having prospered with the L s, his old room
was now their best parlour. "And how are you,
Mrs. L ," said I, " after all these years ? "
Upon which her shoulders moved uncomfort-
ably, and, in a whisper, and with a faint, depre-
catory smile, to excuse the admission she made,
she replied, " Weel I'm just missin' ma bairns."
I have a boy-friend who, a few days ago, was
telling me how he had lately been taken by his
" governor " to some busy provincial centre and
had been made to explore a quarter of the city
which had now fallen into disrepute, but in
which his father had started life and passed
some years of early manhood. " The governor
dragged me up one dirty lane and down
another," said my young friend, "and pointed
out this hovel and that, and had some tale to
tell almost of the very cobbles in the streets.
Until " the boy added plaintively " until he
just upon bored me to suicide." Now, had I a
son, I am perfectly certain granting, of course,
that he was so tractable and unsuspecting as to
allow me to lure him to Edinburgh I am per-
fectly certain, I say, that I could bore him to
suicide in no time. What petty pieces of
XXV111 PREFATORY LETTER.
information concerning my early days I could
impart to him, and with what unimportant detail
I could overload them ! With what zest I could
march that reluctant lad off to distant, outlying
spots, hallowed by me in the very heart of my
memory, and how readily I could wax senti-
mental over many a bygone tramp and picnic !
To what picturesque account I could turn the
presence of some broken bottle or fluttering
paper bag ; and how, giving play to imagination,
I could profess to see the ghost of my former
self in yon stripling who strolls by sheepishly,
and to discover in the comely person of the lass
beside him the substantial spirit of but here,
remembering my boy's tender years, and his
mother at home, I would push on. I would push
on to the edge of the broad loch upon whose
sapphire surface it was my wont in times of pro-
longed frost to venture timorously; and here I
could tell of certain nocturnal excursions in
midwinter in the company of boon companions,
recalling nights which stained the whole country-
side with their azure ; breathless nights whose
still air had in it, nevertheless, the sting of the
nettle, but whose silence was so profound that,
till the comparative riot of our own breathing
made us presumptuous, we walked, talked, and
PREFATORY LETTER. xxix
essayed to laugh, in a solemn measure. And
thence I could drag my weary charge along the
homeward road my friends and I followed on
those long-ago winter nights, and I could gently
hum to him snatches of the songs and carols
which I and those choice spirits had once sung to
the ring of our hard soles upon the frozen paths.
And then, nearing the dense city, my reminis-
cences would flow faster, to keep pace with the
press of the streets. How every turning, every
cross-way would jog the memory ! Over there,.
I could point out, had lodged one who was an
especial crony of mine a jovial medical student,,
short in stature but large of heart, wedded to a
pretty little lady, an actress, erstwhile of the
Theatre Royal. Bless me! and thereupon I could
tell how this little lady bore an unusual but soft-
sounding Christian name at least, the name was a
novel one to me at that time ; it is more fashion-
able, I think, nowadays which I didn't, couldn't,
then suspect was to become a name very close
and dear to me in after-life ; for had this son of
mine existence, that name would be his mother's
name. And then I could recall with what
gusto ! the gruesome incident of a small supper
party at the lodgings of my friend the medical
student, when the guests were assembled, the
XXX PREFATORY LETTER.
host unaccountably late in returning from some
errand, the little hostess crushing natural anxiety
and misgiving between the teeth of an artificial
smile ; and when, upon the host putting in a
tardy appearance, it was discovered that he had
been delayed over the securing of a strange
prize the leg of a dead man, which he had
brought home, for subsequent leisurely dissec-
tion, enclosed in a roll of mackintosh and
tucked covetously under his arm. And then,
to rid our mental palates of the flavour of this
tale, I could push on, and on, until we gained
a certain point of observation lying between
Calton Hill and Greenside Place, and there I
could identify two rather mean-looking windows
as belonging to a room in which once dwelt
a young woman, a mere girl indeed, now dead
and gone, a sweet, simple creature who was
nothing but a very poorly-paid drudge of a
"leading lady," but whose history, one of
patience, cheerfulness, and virtue preserved
against temptation, misfortune, and the stress
of constant struggle, would form a useful lesson
to those inclined to speak slightingly of her
class. And then and then !
But, my dear Archer, you are surely beginning
to suspect me of a desire to make you fill the
PREFATORY LETTER. XXXI
place of the small boy who is not at hand, of
a deliberate intention of boring you to suicide.
The thought that you will so regard my
rhapsodies checks me and yet it may be that
your heart will, in some measure, respond to
these rhapsodies. At any rate, let me assure
you, in extenuation, that you, yourself, form,
in my mind, a link in the sentimental chain
binding me to Edinburgh. Were we not to-
gether there at a period of life upon which no
man, safely harboured in middle-age, can look
back without awe and wonderment and a
profound sense of thankfulness for having
escaped the direst of its perils? Were we
not fellow-explorers of that fairyland whose
glow-worms are the "floats," none the less a
fairyland to me because I had the temerity
to peer into the faces of its pixies while you,
a more modest mortal, contented yourself with
viewing the tinselled people from a remote
bench of the Princess's pit? And if you are
of a disposition which is but slightly stirred
by such associations, perhaps you will more
readily forgive me this garrulous communication
on the score of my feeling of pride at knowing
that bound as you are by previous publication
you cannot escape from devoting to me and to
xxxii PREFATORY LETTER.
my work at least two entries of a commendatory
character in your theatrical log-book for 1895.
" Ho, ho ! " I hear you exclaim, " here is a
person, who has repeatedly assured me that he
avoids reading criticisms upon his own poor
work, confessing he is gratified by the qualified
approval I have bestowed upon him on two
occasions during the past year ! " Pardon me ;
upon my honour, I have never meant to convey
to you that I do not, on any account, read
criticism upon my work. Some of our walks
together, in these later days, by shore and cliff,
have been taken, and enjoyed by one at least of
the twain, in blusterous nor'- westerly breezes
conditions unfavourable to clear understanding.
Allow me to explain, with my hand upon my
heart I am willing nay, anxious to read,
even to commit to memory, criticism upon my
work wJien that criticism is distinctly flattering.
But such a commodity is, as you are aware, not
always to be had. Sometimes it lies, too, in
deep places, like the Avicula Margaritifera, and
demands much hazardous diving ; and then one
may be forced to examine a score or more of
adverse critiques before one lights upon the
pearl of praise. To leave the troublesome
metaphor, it is necessary, I consider, for one of
PREFATORY LETTER. XXX111
my humour diligently to sharpen the instinct,
which belongs perhaps to every writer, for
detecting the presence of adverse criticism. I
am, I congratulate myself, developing this in-
stinct to a very fine degree. Indeed at certain
times during the week or fortnight following
the production of a play of mine, for example
I am now able to stroll into my club and enjoy
an hour's reading without opening a single
journal containing a disagreeable estimate of
my work. At such periods I find The Mining
Journal an invaluable resource. Sometimes I
meet with a mishap ; but, as my scent grows
keener, accidents, I am pleased to say, become
more rare. And there have been occasions,
with bowed head I confess it, when I have
yielded to temptation and have deliberately
unclosed the pages of a review which I knew
must well, which I was almost sure would
and yet, I have reasoned, which might not no !
there it was, the hateful thing ! However, half-
a-dozen words have been enough for me, and I
have then promptly hidden that review where it
would be least likely to meet the eyes of mem-
bers. Of recent years thank heaven ! these
temptations have shown a decided disposition
to pass me by entirely. And truly virtue is its
XXXJV PREFATORY LETTER.
own reward in these practices of abstinence, and
often the reward comes with surprising swift-
ness. Within this past week critical surveys
of the art-work of the departed year are now
appearing, so this is a time, I may tell you, when
The Mining Journal and I are close companions
a man indignantly laid hold of my coat as I
was leaving the club reading-room. " My dear
fellow ! " he cried, " have you seen that abomin-
able attack upon you in The ?" My
bosom swelled. " No," I was able to reply, " I
never read The ." " Why not ? "
" Why not ? See ! Lo, I am about to lunch
happily ! " " But," said my friend, " you ought
to read this atrocious article ; you really oug]it
to." " Ought to ? " I called out gaily, as I
descended the stairs. " That, my good friend,
is a question."
To be quite honest, I admit that my system
has its flaws. What great system has not ?
One of the flaws of my system is that it robs
me of the privilege of reading much brilliant
writing. For instance, I am compelled, by my
system, wholly to abstain from studying those
articles upon dramatic matters contributed to a
well-known journal by your friend Mr. George
Bernard Shaw of whom I protest I am, in
PREFATORY LETTER. XXXV
general, a warm admirer. And on a few days
in the year, however engrossing questions of
broad public interest may be, I am without even
the cheap luxury of a daily paper ! In the same
way, I may find myself, twelve months hence,
forced to regard The Theatrical World of 1896
as a closed book to myself but this is entirely
in your own hands. To my mind, the deepest
flaw in my system is that the Instinct for
Detecting the Presence of Adverse Criticism,
and the resolution to avoid reading such criti-
cism, are only to be cultivated at the expense
of the instinct for discovering criticism which,
though adverse, is liberal, wholesome, and help-
ful which is not, in fact, mere abuse and detrac-
tion. I do not quite see my way to a means of
overcoming this defect. Perhaps you can aid
me. I await your counsel.
Believe me, my dear Archer, to be
Yours most truly,
ARTHUR W. PINERO.
6th January 1896.
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
IT is again my pleasant duty to thank the
Trustees under the will of Mr! Edmund Yates
for their sanction of this reprint of my criticisms
in the World. I am also indebted to the
Editors of the Pall Mall Budget and the New
Budget for permitting me to include several
articles contributed to these papers. To Mr.
Pinero I offer not only my own thanks, but
(by confident anticipation) the thanks of all my
readers, for his charming Prefatory Letter ; and
I am sure that all students of the stage will
appreciate the service rendered them by Mr.
Henry George Hibbert in continuing his
Synopsis of Playbills.
LAST PERFORMANCES OF PLAYS
STILL RUNNING AT PUBLICATION OF
"THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1894."
Last Performance,
1895-
THE CASE OF REBELLIOUS SUSAN
(Criterion : the run was several times
interrupted towards its close) ... March 23.
THE CHIEFTAIN (Savoy) March 16.
CLAUDE DUVAL (Prince of Wales's) ... February 15.
THE DERBY WINNER (Princess's) ... February 16.
THE FATAL CARD (Adelphi) March 16.
HAL THE HIGHWAYMAN (Vaudeville) ... June 15.
His EXCELLENCY (Lyric) April 6.
THE LADY SLAVEY (Strand) January 25.
THE NEW BOY (Vaudeville) March 2.
THE NEW WOMAN (Comedy) February 5.
THE SHOP GIRL (Gaiety) and CHARLIE'S
AUNT (Globe) ran throughout the
year.
THE
THEATRICAL "WORLD"
OF
1896.
I.
THE PANTOMIMES "SLAVES OF THE RING."
znd January.
PARAGRAPHS which had an air of inspiration about
them led us to expect a change of policy at Drury
Lane this year. Whittington and his Cat* written
by Messrs. Raleigh and Hamilton and Sir Augustus
Harris, was to be a veritable children's pantomime,
not a music-hall saturnalia. But the seasoned the
sixteen - seasoned statesmanship of Sir Augustus
Harris shrinks from abrupt transitions. Evolution,
not revolution, is his motto, and he does his reform-
ing gently. A certain effort in the direction of co-
herence is, indeed, discernible. Children will be able
to recognise in the action several incidents from the
life of their old friend Whittington ; whereas it must
have puzzled their brains to discover the remotest
* December 26, 1894 March 16.
I
2 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
resemblance between the Robinson Crusoe of last year
and the veracious history they all know so well.
Moreover, the music-hall element has been slightly
reduced. Sir Augustus Harris clings heroically to
Mr. Herbert Campbell and Mr. Dan Leno, but he
has thrown poor "Little Tich" to the wolves of
criticism. I suppose it is only a proof that gratitude
is foreign to the wolfish breast, but I cannot help
feeling that this was beginning at the wrong end.
The idea of "Little Tich" was painful; the reality
was, to me, genuinely entertaining. There was so
much vigour, elasticity, and apparent enjoyment in
the antics of the little man, that one lost all sense of
making capital out of deformity, and accepted him
simply as an inimitable grotesque. Now, if Sir
Augustus had begun at the other end, and sacrificed
Mr. Herbert Campbell but no matter ! a time will
come ! The tide is setting strongly towards refine-
ment, and even Messrs. Campbell and Leno are this
year comparatively subdued. On the spectacular
side of the production, no expense or trouble has been
spared. Be sure to take your children in good time,
for nothing in the pantomime will please them more
than the Cat Review of the opening scene. Then
there is a very pretty Flower Ballet in the Highgate
scene, and the boarding of Whittington's ship by the
Japanese gives occasion for some magnificent cos-
tumes. The Feast of Lanterns at the Court of China
THE PANTOMIMES. 3
is perhaps the most resplendent spectacle ever seen
even on the Drury Lane stage, and the Lord Mayor's
Show is almost as gorgeous, and much more amusing.
In it is introduced a song and dance satirising the
Municipal Theatre idea, which the authors seem
somehow to associate with Mrs. Ormiston Chant,
though it was in fact Mr. Irving who started it. The
song is harmless enough fooling; but the dance ends
in one of the most senseless and unpleasing exhibi-
tions I ever saw in a theatre eight or ten young
women, dressed as " Hallelujah Lasses," lying flat on
the stage and tumbling and scrambling over each
other like leeches in a jar. Without being positively
indecent, this is precisely the sort of thing to
strengthen the hands of Puritanism. Miss Ada
Blanche plays Whittington; Miss Marie Montrose,
Alice ; Miss Agnes Hewett, the Emperor of China ;
Miss Lily Harold, the Prince of China ; and Miss
"Queenie Lawrence, the Princess.
Mr. Oscar Barrett, at the Lyceum, has followed up
his delightful Cinderella of last year with an equally
delightful Santa dans* It lacks nothing in the way
of splendour, yet it charms us by dint of invention,
thought, and taste, rather than mere expenditure.
We never say, " How gorgeous ! " without adding,
" How beautiful!" The dresses, designed by Wilhelm,
* December 26, 1894 March 2 (afternoons only after the
production of King Arthur),
4 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
are full of grace and fantasy; the dances, arranged by
Madame Katti Lanner, are clear and flowing in spite
of their intricacy; and the harmony of colour attained
in the spectacular scenes is an education, instead of
a mere bewilderment, to the childish eye. The solo
dancing, by Mile. Zanfretta and M. and Mile.
Espinosa, is clever in its kind ; and little Miss
Geraldine Somerset shows a charming simplicity as
well as technical skill in the dance of the Spider and
the Fly. Mr. Horace Lennard has blent the legends
of the Babes in the Wood and Bold Robin Hood into
a simple, consistent, easily comprehensible story, told
in pleasant, unpretending rhymes, with a brevity
which leaves room for plenty of clever and inoffensive
fooling on the part of the comedians, Mr. Victor
Stevens, Mr. Fred Emney, Miss Susie Vaughan,
and Miss Clara Jecks. Miss Kitty Loftus and Miss
Rosie Leyton play the Babes in the Wood with an air
of unconstrained glee and enjoyment which gives sun-
shine to the whole production. The nursery scene,
with the visit of Santa Claus, the episode of the
wooden soldiers, and the Alphabet Procession, are the
very things to delight the youthful heart; and older
children, who have got the length of Ivanhoe, will
rejoice to see Richard Coeur de Lion, in his habit as
he lived, visiting Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest.
There is only one thing against which I must enter a
vehement protest, and that is the death of the Babes'
THE PANTOMIMES. 5
faithful collie, Tatters. As embodied by Mr. Charles
Lauri, Tatters is the most popular and sympathetic
character in the pantomime, and his untimely end is
too harrowing to be borne. Pray believe that I make
this protest quite seriously. Children ought not to
have their feelings wrung and their pleasures saddened
in this way. I am bound to admit that on the after-
noon when I saw the pantomime the children present
(and they were many) appeared to take it stoically.
They probably could not realise at the moment that
Tatters was actually dead; but they will afterwards,
and it will leave a dark spot in their memories.* One
other hint to Mr. Oscar Barrett : I hope in his next
pantomime he will let us have a larger number of
familiar airs, whether songs of the day or old ballads.
Apart from the ballet music and perhaps here and
there an original song, the score of a pantomime
should, to my thinking, be a mere mosaic of old
favourites.
There is no denying that Mr. Sydney Grundy's
new play at the Garrick did not produce the effect
at which the author aimed. The applause was
courteous, not enthusiastic; whereas the high-pitched
emotion of the principal scenes ought clearly to have
worked the audience up to a correspondingly high
pitch of excitement. If, like Dr. Johnson, I "talked
* Tatters was eventually brought to life again, in deference to
many protests.
6 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
for victory," I might easily find in this lukewarmness
a conclusive proof of my own pet doctrines about the
drama. I might point to the fact that Slaves of the
Ring* belongs to Mr. Grundy's period of ingenuity.
It is obviously the piece he refers to in a letter to the
Telegraph, dated October 26th, 1894, from which it
appears that the first draft was written and read to
Mr. Hare " before the production of The Danicheffs "
that is to say, in or before 1876. It afterwards
underwent some modification, but there is every
reason to suppose that even in its existing form it
dates from at least fifteen years ago. At that period
Mr. Grundy was still a devotee of the French, or,
more precisely, of the Scribe-Sardou, methods of
construction; and it would be open to me to argue
that what marred the full effect of the play on
Saturday night was precisely the ingenious and
artificial niceties of adjustment on which writers of
that school so greatly valued themselves. But even
in dialectics I am subject to intermittent attacks of
conscientiousness, and I must forego this triumph
over the late lamented Scribe. There would be a
certain measure of truth in the artificiality argument,
but it would not be the whole, nor even the essential,
truth. The plain fact is that the acting gave the play
no chance. It was singularly bad the worst per-
formance I can remember to have seen in the
* December 29, 1894 January 16.
" SLAVES OF THE RING." 7
Garrick Theatre. With the exception of Mr. Hare
himself and Miss Kate Phillips, not one of the artists
engaged did full justice to his or her part. Again
and again in the first and second acts I found myself
intellectually recognising the strength of situations,
the beauty of speeches, which utterly failed to get at
my emotions. Again and again I said to myself,
" Here is a fine idea, an admirable scene if only
they would act it ! "
There is no doubt, however, that the play "dates."
It is a belated pioneer. Fifteen years ago it would
have been epoch-making; to-day, it brings with it a
vague odour of the pigeon-hole. "It was rejected
with horror by every important manager in London,"
says Mr. Grundy; and in that fact lies his best
excuse for the years of intellectual lethargy from
which he has only recently awakened. The managers
of fifteen years ago must surely feel some qualms of
conscience with respect to it; but recriminations are
vain. Their timidity or obtuseness retarded Mr.
Grundy's career; it shall not baulk him of the esteem
due to able, original and courageous work. He was
ready and eager to lead the forlorn hope; it is not
his fault that he was denied the opportunity.
As its title indicates, Slaves of the Ring is an
attack on marriage not on the tie itself, but on its
practical indissolubility. The thesis formulated by
Mr. Grundy's " reasoner," the sage and sententious
8 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Captain Douglas, is a denial of the wisdom and
humanity of the " glorious plan " which makes
divorce the privilege of "sinners," and denies it to
those who exercise self-control and self-respect. But
it is the logical weakness, the poetical merit and
strength of the play, that it goes much deeper than
its thesis. A quite different fable would have
illustrated more cogently the iniquities of our divorce
law. The Transgressor* for example, in its crude and
violent fashion, went more directly to the point. It
is not really the divorce-law that Mr. Grundy arraigns,
but the constitution of things that intricate compli-
cation of the emotional meshes of life, whereby the
joy of one involves another's sorrow, kindness to A
means cruelty to . B, and the only choice allowed us,
in so many cases, is not between happiness and un-
happiness for ourselves and others, but between two
ways of wrong-doing, two forms of remorse. It is
not any law that makes the misery of the two
marriages here in question, and the penny-in-the-slot
divorce facilities of Illinois or Wisconsin would not
greatly mend matters. A happy union between
Harold and Ruth is impossible, not because the
Divorce Court would either " crush or soil " the
woman, but because no divorce law in the world
would enable them to extract happiness from the
misery of the other two Helen and George who
* See Theatrical World of 1894, p. 41.
" SLAVES OF THE RING." 9
had loved and trusted them. It is true that law, and
the habits of thought which it at once expresses and
engenders, are not without their influence in the
matter. The misery of the deserted ones would very
likely be in some measure factitious, the ingrained
habit of idealising marriage having made any break-
down of the arrangement seem quite disproportion-
ately painful and terrible. These agonies of con-
vention, these pains which it is our duty to feel,
are almost as torturing as the more instinctive and
fundamental agonies of unrequited passion ; and the
play is not without its practical bearing in so far as it
suggests such changes in written and unwritten law as
would tend to minimise the unnecessary and unreal
pains of emotional readjustments. But until human
nature has so altered that the word " love " has lost
both its beauties and its terrors, there will always
remain an irreducible element of quite real and
necessary suffering in such a situation as that
which Mr. Grundy presents. These people are not
essentially "slaves of the ring"; they are slaves of
their own and each other's passions. The ring adds
little to their discomforts. The situation is essentially
the same in the first act, before the ring is put on.
What keeps Harold and Ruth apart in the last act is
not the law of marriage, but the same shrinking from
happiness founded on the misery of others which
kept them apart in the first act, before they had come
10 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
under the dominion of the marriage-law. They not
only shrink from it, they regard it as impossible. In
the first act, there was still some hope that they
might find peace in sacrificing themselves to the
happiness of the other two; in the last act the
mischief is done, the happiness of Helen and George
Uelamere is effectually ruined, and yet they find it
less impossible to continue the now futile sacrifice
than to attempt the building of their own happiness
out of the ruins they have involuntarily created.
" Yes," says Mr. Grundy, " they bow their heads
under the social yoke, and remain slaves of the ring."
But he surely does not imagine that the ring would
keep them apart if their own heart and conscience
did not raise an impassable barrier between them.
That seems to me to be the only justification for the
end, which is, however, so disconcertingly abrupt
that one is really not quite sure what Mr. Grundy
intended to convey.
The construction of the first two acts, though old-
fashioned in its complexity, seems to me altogether
admirable. A very austere technique would shun
the parallelism of the first act Harold failing to
break from his bondage because Helen clings to him
so tenderly, Ruth held to her word by the very fact
that George Delamere offers to set her free. There
is doubtless an air of artificiality in this; but it really
belongs to the situation, and for my part I cannot
" SLAVES OF THE RING." I I
help taking pleasure in such a piece of delicate and
skilful constructive counterpoint. The second act is
probably the most original and powerful piece of
writing Mr. Grundy has ever done. It rises to the
very summit of the drama of situation, of emotion in
the abstract, as distinct from the drama of character.
From the entrance of Captain Douglas onwards, it
simply bristles with dramatic moments, and there is
a touch of really poetic imagination in the scene of
Ruth's delirium. Had this scene been adequately
acted by Miss Calhoun and Mr. Gilbert Hare, it
would have converted a success of esteem into a
great and memorable triumph. Miss Calhoun was
deficient in passion, in pathos, and especially in the
sense of mystery upon which the whole effect of the
passage depends. The last act did not strike me as
happily conceived, but I don't know that I can lay
my finger on any very tangible error. The scene
Delamere's conservatory is surely ill chosen, and
Helen's leap through the hedge is more daring than
effective.
It would be unkind to speak of Mr. Gilbert Hare's
performance. He has shown some promise as a
character-actor, but neither his physique nor his
talent fits him to step into Mr. Forbes Robertson's
shoes. Miss Calhoun acted agreeably enough in the
opening and closing scenes, but in the second act
she missed her great opportunity. Miss Kate Rorke
12 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
did not seem to me at all at her best. In some of
the crucial passages of the play I could not but think
her stagey and unreal. Mr. Bourchier's part offered
him small opportunities, but he handled it rather
heavily; and Mr. Brandon Thomas, despite his un-
failing sincerity, did not succeed in making a very
credible personage of Captain Douglas. Mr. Hare
was delightful as the cynical old Earl, and Miss Kate
Phillips made the most of the designing widow a
part in which the date of the play was written very
large. By-the-bye, the little glimpse we are given
into the tragedy of Lord Ravenscroft's life struck me
as the best thing in the third act;- but it passed
almost unnoticed.
II.
"THYRZA FLEMING."
gth January.
Miss DOROTHY LEIGHTON'S play, Thyrza Fleming*
produced by the renovated Independent Theatre
Society at Terry's Theatre, is marked by inexperience,
but not at all by incompetence. The first act is a
comedietta in itself, a spirited, natural, and entertain-
ing duologue. As the action proceeds, Miss Leighton
* January 4 January 10.
"THYRZA FLEMING." 13
strays from the path which she seems to have pro-
posed to herself. The play being obviously designed
as a counterblast to The Heavenly Twins and other
neo-puritanic denunciations of the Eternal Masculine,
the romantic fable of the long-lost mother is a
mere irrelevance and embarrassment. The theme is
treated with such extreme delicacy that I am really
quite uncertain whether Thyrza Fleming has or has
not been the mistress of Colonel Rivers. If she has
not, the case is flatly irrelevant, and does not touch
the question of pre-nuptial morality at all. If she
has and I think we are forced to assume that she
has, in spite of a half-hearted and probably hair-
splitting denial on her part then the question of
pre-nuptial morality is complicated by a quite un-
necessary, improbable, and painful conjuncture ot
circumstances. Playwrights of far greater experience
than Miss Dorothy Leighton have been equally blind
to the artistic necessity of stating a case in its simplest
terms, if you want to state it at all. It is clear that
what was primarily in Miss Leighton's mind was the
general question of the man who has lived " a man's
life " before marriage, not the very rare and extremely
disagreeable case of the man who has lived a man's
life with the mother of his bride. In pitching upon
this particular complication, Miss Leighton utterly
overshoots her mark; while, on the other hand, if
the relations between Colonel Rivers and Thyrza
14 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895. .
were platonic, she no less clearly undershoots her
mark, or rather fails to discharge her bolt at all.
Miss Winifred Frazer played Pamela quite admirably,
Mr. Bernard Gould was good as Rivers, and Miss
Esther Palliser showed some ability in the part of
Thyrza, but was hampered by nervousness and in-
experience. Miss Agnes Hill, I observe, has been
accused of burlesquing Theophila Falkland. I don't
see what else she could have done with the speeches
assigned her.
III.
" AN IDEAL HUSBAND."
Pall Mall Budget, \QthJanuary.
MR. OSCAR WILDE might have given a second title
to his highly entertaining play at the Haymarket,*
which we all enjoyed very nearly as much as he
himself did. He might have called it An Ideal
Husband ; or, The Chillern Thousands. There were
eighty-six of them ,86,000 was the price paid to
Sir Robert Chiltern, then private secretary to a
Cabinet Minister, for betraying to an Austrian
financier the intention of the Government to pur-
* January 3 April 6. Transferred to Criterion. April II
April 27.
"AN IDEAL HUSBAND." 15
chase the Suez Canal Shares. The thousands have
increased and multiplied; he is wealthy, he is
respected, he is Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
he is married to a wife who idolises and idealises
him ; and, not having stolen anything more in the
interim, he is inclined to agree with his wife and the
world in regarding himself as the Bayard of Downing
Street. The question which Mr. Wilde propounds
is, " Ought his old peccadillo to incapacitate him for
public life?" and, while essaying to answer it in the
negative, he virtually, to my thinking, answers it in
the affirmative. On the principle involved, I have
no very strong feeling. It is a black business
enough; no divorce -court scandal could possibly
be so damning; but one is quite willing to believe
it possible that a sudden yielding to overwhelming
temptation may occur once in a lifetime, and may
even steel the wrong-doer against all future tempta-
tion and render him a stronger man than he would
otherwise have been. This, I repeat, is possible;
but unfortunately the first thing Mr. Wilde does is to
show that Sir Robert Chiltern is not a case in point.
Enter Mrs. Cheveley from Vienna, tawny-haired,
red -cheeked, white -shouldered. She has in her
pocket the letter in which Sir Robert let the Suez
cat out of the bag; and, if he will not support in
Parliament an Argentine Canal, which he knows
to be a gigantic swindle, she will send the letter
1 6 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
to the papers and ruin his political career. Here,
then, is an excellent opportunity for Sir Robert
to show his mettle. If his honour rooted in
dishonour stands, if the boy's weakness has fortified
the man's probity, he will of course send Mrs.
Cheveley to the right-about and prepare to face
the music. It will then be for the dramatist's
'"ingenuity to devise some means of averting the
exposure, which Sir Robert deserves to escape, for
the very reason that he is man enough to -brave
it rather than commit a second and greater
treachery. Alas ! this is not at all Mr. Wilde's view
of the matter. Sir Robert Chiltern does not send
Mrs. Cheveley to the right-about. On the contrary,
he licks the dust before her, and is quite prepared to
involve his country in a second Panama catastrophe
in order to save his own precious skin. This is
giving away the whole case. It may be a mistake to
hold a man disabled by his past from doing service
to the State; but this man is disabled by his present.
The excellent Sir Robert proves himself one of those
gentlemen who can be honest so long as it is
absolutely convenient, and no longer; and on the
whole, in spite of Mr. Wilde's argument, I am
inclined to think it a wise instinct which leads us
(so far as possible) to select for our Cabinet Ministers
men of less provisional probity.
And Sir Robert Chiltern is as irresolute in ill-doinsr
"AN IDEAL HUSBAND." I/
as in well-doing. Unfortunately for Mrs. Cheveley
and her Argentine accomplices, he has told his wife
all he knows about the canal scheme; and when she
learns that he is going to chop round and support
the scheme in Parliament, she cannot believe her
ears. " This woman must have some hold over
you," she says. "Oh, dear, no!" replies Bayard;
"how can you think such a thing? I just thought
I'd like to oblige her." Lady Bayard naturally
thinks that this is carrying chivalry a little too far,
and insists that he shall sit down and write a note
crying off his promise. With the utmost docility he
does so, but still conceals from his wife the reason
of his original compliance, preferring apparently that
she shall learn it from Mrs. Cheveley, as she duly
does. Then Bayard loses his temper and rates his
wife roundly for her stupidity in not knowing all
along that he was a scoundrel, and acting up to her
position as a scoundrel's helpmeet. The happy pair
are now at a deadlock, and the action accordingly
passes out of their hands and into those of Lord
Goring, a young aristocrat who combines a pretty
wit with the subtle policy of Hawkshaw the Detective.
While exuding epigrams at every pore, he manages to
slip, not the bracelets, but a tell-tale bracelet, upon
the adventuress's wrist, and to send her back baffled
to Vienna. Then he looks in at Park Lane and
talks like a father to Lady Chiltern, convincing her
2
1 8 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
that to have betrayed your trust once, and to have
been with difficulty dissuaded from doing so a second
time, is not at all an undesirable record for a Cabinet
Minister. And the curtain descends upon this com-
fortable moral.
Upon my honour (if the creator of Sir Robert
Chiltern will forgive the Pharisaism), I had not the
slightest intention when I sat down of picking the
play to pieces in this way. I don't know what
possessed me. An Ideal Husband is a very able and
entertaining piece of work, charmingly written, where-
ever Mr. Wilde can find it in his heart to sufflaminate
his wit. There are several scenes in which the dia-
logue is heavily overburdened with witticisms, not
always of the best alloy. For Mr. Wilde's good
things I have the keenest relish, but I wish he
would imitate Beau Brummel in throwing aside his
"failures," not exposing them to the public gaze.
His peculiar twist of thought sometimes produces
very quaint and pleasing results. To object to it as
a mere trick would be quite unreasonable. Every
writer of any individuality has, so to speak, his trade-
mark; but there are times when the output of Mr.
Wilde's epigram-factory threatens to become all trade-
mark and no substance. An Ideal Husband^ how-
ever, does not positively lack good things, but simply
suffers from a disproportionate profusion of inferior
chatter. In each of Mr. Wilde's plays there has been
" AN IDEAL HUSBAND." 19
one really profound saying, which serves to mark it
in my memory. In Lady Windermere's Fan it was:
"There are only two tragedies in life: not getting
what you want and getting it." In A Woman of
no Importance it was: "Thought is in its essence
destructive; nothing survives being thought of." In
this play it is: "Vulgarity is the behaviour of other
people." Simple as it seems, there is in this a world
of observation and instruction.
The acting was sufficient without being distin-
guished. Mr. Lewis Waller, as Sir Robert Chiltern,
was quite equal to his opportunities, which were not
really so great as they might at first sight appear; and
Miss Neilson, in her stately fashion, made Lady
Chiltern a rather trying monitress to live up to. The
good and bad fairy of the Christmas piece were
impersonated by Mr. Charles Hawtrey and Miss
Florence West respectively. Mr. Hawtrey's Lord
Goring will be altogether delightful when he is quite
firm in his words and takes his part a little quicker.
Miss West played Mrs. Cheveley in a straightforward
and somewhat obvious, but not ineffective, fashion.
Miss Maud Millet was invaluable in a character cut
to her measure; and Mr. Alfred Bishop, Mr. Brook-
field, and Miss Fanny Brough were all excellent.
20 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
IV.
"KING ARTHUR " " GUY DOMVILLE."
ibth January.
A SPLENDID pageant and a well-built folk-play (for
why should we leave to the Germans such a
convenient word as Volksstiick T) these are the
ingredients of the dish served up at the Lyceum
on Saturday night, and hugely relished by the
audience. King Arthur* is a genuine success, of
that there is no doubt; and it deserves its fortune.
In producing such a work, Mr. Irving is putting his
opportunities and resources to a worthy use. In the
historic or legendary pageant-play he seems to have
found the formula best suited to the present stage of
his career. On this path, at any rate, he marches
from success to success from Henry VIII. to Becket,
from Becket to King Arthur. Mr. Comyns Carr, it
is true, is neither Shakespeare-Fletcher nor Tennyson.
We miss not only the distinction of style, but the
large dramatic movement which even Tennyson
succeeded in imparting to one or two of his scenes.
On the other hand, Mr. Carr writes very creditable
blank verse, correct and by no means lacking in
* King Arthur ran from January 12 to May 3, and was after-
wards played at many matinees, and at three additional evening
performances, before the close of the season.
"KING ARTHUR." 21
dignified sonority; and he knows how to put a play
together much better than Tennyson ever did, or
than Shakespeare cared to in Henry VIII. There
are some very pretty ingenuities of compression in
his treatment of his somewhat unwieldy theme.
Perhaps, when a new pageant-play is wanted, Mr.
Carr might collaborate with one of the young poets
who are burgeoning around us like flowers in spring;
and thus might the reign of Mr. Irving be at last
immortalised by a substantial enrichment of English
literature.
Mr. Carr is reputed to have gone back to Malory
for his inspiration, not daring, or perhaps not
deigning, to tread in the footsteps of Tennyson.
That he went to Malory I don't doubt; that he
brought very much away from Malory I cannot
discover. Where he departs from Tennyson, it is
not, or very seldom, to follow Malory; and the
characters of Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot are
much more Tennysonian than Malorian. It asks
some courage, but I am moved to take my critical
life in my hand and say a word for The Idylls of the
King in their relation to the Morte d 1 Arthur. That
Tennyson refined away the racy medievalism of
Malory's compilation, that he carved a set of highly
polished modern romances out of the rough mass of
the primitive epic so much is patent to every one.
It may even be admitted that the Idylls bear too
22 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
many traces of those upper-middle-class, squire-
archical ideals which informed so much of his work.
The moral atmosphere of the poem is a trifle stuffy.
But how rare and exquisite its physical atmosphere,
its plastic and picturesque aspects ! Its landscape
alone is a possession for ever to the imagination of
our race; and it is full of essential poetry, of things
said as nobly and beautifully as it is possible to say
them. Why should we quarrel with the work of a
great poet because he was not at the same time a
pioneer spirit and a master dramatist? Apply to
the Paradise Lost the methods of criticism currently
applied to the Idylls, and it would cut a sorry figure.
But why do I use the conditional mood ? The thing
has been done, with memorable effect, by the late
Monsieur Taine. My present purpose, however, is
chiefly to protest against the idea that, in his
Blameless King, Tennyson has been guilty of a
sad injustice to the magnificent Arthur of Malory.
Tennyson's Arthur is, no doubt, a bit of a prig, as
any mystic and semi-allegoric personage is apt to be.
He does not wear his blamelessness with a very easy
grace, and manages now and then to rub our un-
regenerate human nature the wrong way. But if he
is a prig, he is at least an eminently well-meaning
one; whereas Malory's Arthur is a prig and a hound
to boot. He had the advantage, of course, of not
being blameless. He had quite a little brood of
" KING ARTHUR." 23
children (and among them Mordred) or ever he met
Guinevere; but, after all, there is no great merit in
that. The drowning of all the children born on
May-day was not precisely an amiable circumstance:
one prefers even Tennysonian blamelessness to such
out-Heroding Herod. But it -is precisely in his
relation to Guinevere and Lancelot that Malory's
Arthur comes out in the most questionable light.
In the first place, he is very much annoyed when
Sir Agravaine and Sir Mordred (answering in the
affirmative Labiche's query, Doit-on le dire ?) insist
on telling him the Court scandal. " The King was
full loth thereto, that any noise should be upon
Launcelot and his queen; for the King had a
deeming, but he would not hear of it." Then, when
the thing is no longer to be hushed up, this excellent
monarch stoops to the familiar device of a pre-
tended absence for "taking them with the deed."
He has no sort of belief in the trial by battle which
he has been countenancing all his life. " Lancelot,"
he says, in effect, " must be caught in the act; for if
you leave him a chance to appeal to the wager of
arms, he'll knock you all into a cocked hat, and
where shall we be then?" Lancelot, having fallen
into the trap, cuts his way out of it; and Guinevere,
without any form of trial, is to be burnt at the
stake, though even Sir Gawaine says to the outraged
husband, "Wit you well, I will never be in that place
24 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
where so noble a Queen as is my lady dame Guen-
ever shall take a shameful end." Lancelot rescues
her, and in so doing kills Gareth, Gaheris, and
many others of his old comrades; whereupon Arthur
remarks, " Much more I am sorrier for my good
knights' loss than for the loss of my fair Queen; for
queens I might have enow, but such a fellowship of
good knights shall never be together in no company."
No doubt there is reason and candour in this; but
dignity is somewhat lacking. No ! it is Lancelot
who plays the fine part in Malory; or rather, one
may say, Lancelot is the real character, the poetically
conceived and projected figure, of the whole. His
quiet, resolute, indomitable devotion, his melancholy
courtesy and inexhaustible magnanimity, are infinitely
and quite immorally touching. When it comes to
open war between the King and his knight, Lancelot
is untiring in his chivalric forbearance, while Arthur
allows Gawaine to challenge him to single combat,
well knowing that Gawaine is not going to fight fair,
but is protected by sorcery. Tennyson could not
possibly have reproduced the base, barbarian Arthur
of Malory, who, after winking at his wife's intrigue,
is bent upon burning her when he can wink no
longer. Even the much-denounced allocution at
Almesbury was less inhuman than that. And Mr.
Carr was bound to follow Tennyson's lead in some-
what redressing the balance between Arthur and
" KING ARTHUR." 25
Lancelot. I cannot find that his Arthur is much
more human than Tennyson's, but at least he is free
from the smug egoism that defaces some of the
Tennysonian speeches. Mr. Carr's Arthur does not
say:
" I am thine husband not a smaller soul,
Not Lancelot, nor another."
He does not twit her with her childlessness :
" The children born of thee are sword and fire,
Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws."
And yet, as I write the words, there comes over me
a quite indefensible wish that he had said anything
half as magnificent, in however execrable taste,
instead of mildly reflecting that
" There is no might can give back to the spring
Its lowliest flower dead under changing skies ;
Then how should I, with winter at my heart,
Plead with the ruined summer for its rose ? "
This is a highly respectable and harmless sentiment;
no gentleman, under the painful circumstances, could
possibly express himself with greater propriety; but
somehow I feel as if even the tactless outpourings of
Tennyson's Arthur had a little more blood and nerve
in them. They are a sort of middle term between
Mr. Carr's delicacy of sentiment and the crude
26 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
realism of Malory's "Queens I might have enow,
but such a fellowship of good knights shall never be
together in no company."
The first and third acts of Mr. Carr's play (mind,
when I say the first act, I don't mean the Prologue)
are quite admirably constructed. The way in which
the living Elaine reveals Lancelot's passion to the
Queen, while the dead Elaine reveals it to the King,
is not only ingenious, but beautiful: and the process
of emotion in both acts is excellently dramatic. The
best-written passage in the play, to my thinking, is
the declaration between Lancelot and Guinevere. If
Miss Ellen Terry had been a tragic and passionate
instead of an idyllic and fascinating actress, this
would have been a really thrilling dramatic moment.
Much less excellent are the second and fourth acts.
In the second, one cannot help wondering why
Lancelot and Guinevere should select the occasion
of a picnic, when the woods are known to be full of
merrymakers, for such compromising endearments.
In the fourth, the drama is practically over, and has
only to be wound up in formal and spectacular
fashion.
The spectacle is gorgeous throughout; but the
supernatural element, the diablerie, if I may put it
so (with apologies to Merlin), is, from first to last,
inferior. In all other departments of scenic decora-
tion Mr. Irving is a pioneer; in his dealings with the
"KING ARTHUR. 2/
supernatural he is, if not behind the age, at any rate
barely abreast of it. He relies entirely upon his scenic
artists for his sorceries, and they, though masters in
their own department, are the veriest tyros in necro-
mancy. Mr. Irving ought to call in a specialist for
his illusions, no less than for his costumes an artist,
and at the same time a man of mechanical and
inventive genius Professor Herkomer, for example.
A resolute adherence to antiquated methods of
diablerie did much to mar the effect of Faust ; in
King Arthur it is still more deplorable, though
fortunately it does not enter into any of the essential
scenes of the drama. The Prologue it utterly ruins.
Anything more feebly undeceptive and ludicrously
unpoetical than this whole scene it would be hard to
conceive. It presents, as you probably know, the
finding, or taking, or achieving, of the brand Ex-
calibur, an incident familiar to the imagination of
every one. How much better to have left it entirely
to the imagination, if this was all that could be done
to realise it !*
In the first place, the Magic Mere becomes a
dismal chasm in a cliff-bound coast, so narrow that
Arthur could not have taken a header into it without
danger of dashing out his brains against the rocks on
the opposite side. In the background, but at the
* This paragraph, and the three following, appeared in the
Pall Mall Budget, January 24.
28 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
distance of only a few yards, a dim arch, like a
bridge, traverses the whole scene. To this moment
I am unable even to conjecture what it represents
whether a natural arch in the rock, or a stationary
mist-wreath, or nothing at all. Whatever it may be,
it is very stiff and ugly. Above it hang mathe-
matically horizontal " sky-borders," apparently repre-
senting a flat layer of fog in the upper air. But
again this is a mere guess; whatever they represent,
they resemble nothing but sky-borders. The water
is simulated by the old device of strips of gauze
stretched across the stage a transparent convention.
Over the edge of the gauze a hand (not an arm)
awkwardly protrudes the sword for a few moments
and then withdraws it again (!), while Merlin amuses
Arthur with a vision of Guinevere, seen under the
aforementioned arch, against a crudely-painted back-
ground of may-blossom. This over, the Spirit of the
Lake rises stiffly from behind the gauze and speaks
her piece, while Excalibur once more bobs up like
a dog at her heels. When she has disappeared,
Excalibur somehow shambles a yard or two nearer
the point of rock where Arthur is standing, and he
secures it at some risk of toppling into the pool.
Is it possible Mr. Irving does not realise how the
narrowness of the pool, the popping up and down of
the sword, and its unspeakably ludicrous position
beside and yet apart from the Spirit of the Lake (as
" KING ARTHUR." 29
though she disdained to deliver her parcels in person)
how all this ruins the poetry of the incident and
reduces it to mechanical and childish make-believe?
The whole staging of the Prologue is unimaginative,
uninventive, unbeautiful. It may be (though I don't
believe it) that the resources of stage-illusion go no
further. In that case it is a thousand pities they
should ever have gone so far.
No less ineffectual is the vision of the Grail in the
first act. It is an error of art to begin with (like the
disappearance and reappearance of Excalibur), and
it is badly executed to boot. These marvels lose all
their marvellousness when they occur and recur at a
given hour of the afternoon. To top off Sir Kay's
description of the great miracle with a private
repetition of it for Sir Lancelot's special benefit is
to perpetrate an obvious piece of bathos. The only
excuse for it would be that the actual miracle should
surpass its description; whereas, in fact, it falls ludi-
crously short of it. To the eye of faith, the apparition
may be an angel bearing the Holy Grail; to the
natural eye, it rather suggests a waiting-maid of the
period walking along a corridor with a vol-au-vent
swathed in a napkin. The s'.age-direction says that
" a red light strikes like a star through the trans-
parent veil that covers the cup;" but I saw nothing
of the sort. An artist-machinist might surely have
found inspiration in that verse of Tennyson's:
3O THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
" A gentle sound, an awful light !
Three angels bear the Holy Grail :
With folded feet ', in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail."
Or, if it come not within the powers of the modern
stage to realise such a picture, it might at least
dissemble its impotence by leaving the thing un-
attempted. Similarly, Tennyson has drawn for all
time the picture of the Passing of Arthur; and if
scenic ingenuity cannot (as it certainly does not at
the Lyceum) come anywhere near the presentation of
" The level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon,"
Arthur would much better be suffered to pass unseen
to the Unseen. But I cannot persuade myself that it
is impossible to devise a worthier illusion than that
clumsy barge hopelessly aground in a grey-green fog.
I dwell on this matter of the supernatural effects,
neither exaggerating nor extenuating their deficiencies,
because I have perfect faith in Mr. Irving's liberality,
enthusiasm, and desire to do the very best with the
means at his command. He does not realise, I am
sure, how lame and unimpressive is the supernatural
side of this great production; and as soon as he
begins to think about it, he will see his way, on
future occasions, to more novel and beautiful effects.
Thought is really all that is required; and though
"KING ARTHUR." 31
Mr. Irving, of course, cannot be his own machinist
any more than his own costumier, there must be
plenty of people able and willing to devise and carry
out improvements, the moment Mr. Irving's imagina-
tion has become fully possessed of the desire for
them. He surely cannot doubt the possibility of
improvement, when he reflects on the enormous
advance that has been made under his management
in everything else, while the mechanism of the super-
natural has alone remained stationary. How the
late Mr. Bateman would have stared at the costumes,
the scenery, and the general appointments of King
Arthur! but the visions and portents would have
struck him as quite in their accustomed order.
Pictorial illusion is not the highest aim of theatrical
art, but it is at all events better worth achieving than
pictorial disillusion.
The character of Arthur will undoubtedly be
reckoned among Mr. Irving's finer achievements.
He embodies it with incomparable nobility and
refinement, and speaks his verses with perfect
distinction and purity of accent. Mr. Comyns
Carr's blank verse is Tennysonian in its movement,
and therefore suits Mr. Irving's methods much better
than a more impetuous and dramatic prosody, which
calls for a corresponding impetus of delivery. Miss
Ellen Terry is an ideal Guinevere to the eye; it is
impossible to conceive a statelier or more gracious
32 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
figure; and her performance is altogether charming.
Mr. Forbes Robertson is an ethereal ised Lancelot.
His figure is absolutely beautiful; but it suggests
an "affable archangel" of Carpaccio's or Benozzo
Gozzoli's rather than a knight of the Round Table;
or if indeed a knight, then the stainless Galahad
rather than the superbly human Lancelot of the
Lake. His acting, let me hasten to add, is perfect
in its kind. Miss Genevieve Ward and Mr. Frank
Cooper do nothing to soften the villainy of Morgan
le Fay and Mordred, and Miss Lena Ashwell makes
a simple and pleasant Elaine. A beardless Merlin
seems almost a contradiction in terms. It was
thought, no doubt, that a beard might bring with it
reminiscences of Santa Claus in Mr. Oscar Barrett's
pantomime; but there might surely have been a
middle course between Father Christmas and the
First Witch in Macbeth. Mr. Valentine, in any case,
spoke his lines sonorously and well. As for the
armour and costumes designed by Sir Edward Burne-
Jones, one may report, safely and briefly, that
nothing more beautiful has ever been seen on any
stage.
Since Beau Austin, we have seen nothing on the
English stage so charming as the first act of Guy
Domville* The motives are delicately interwoven,
yet remain clear and convincing; the scenes are
* St. James's, January 5 February 5.
" GUY DOMVILLE." 33
ordered with a master hand; and the writing is
graceful without mannerism. It seemed to me that
Mr. James made one slight mistake, or rather missed
one opportunity. Mrs. Peverel has told Frank
Humber that the signet-ring is designed as a 'parting
gift for a friend, meaning Guy Domville. Then she
comes to think that it is from Humber, not Domville,
that she must part; what a pretty and dramatic
touch it would be if she were to give the ring to
Humber, by way of announcing, in delicate sym-
bolism, her rejection of his suit ! As a matter of
fact, she does give the ring to Humber; but the
significance of the gift seems to occur to her only
as an afterthought, and the ingenuity and beauty of
the effect is lost. This is a very small matter so
minute, indeed, that I may have been misled as to
Mr. James's intention by some momentary slip on
Miss Marion Terry's part. Otherwise, the act was a
gem without a flaw. In the second act Mr. James
appeared to pass from comedy of sentiment to
comedy of intrigue. There was no further develop-
ment of Domville's character, and even the immediate
motives which governed him ceased to be very clear.
The drinking-scene, too, seemed to be a concession
to some supposed demand for lively and even violent
action, rather than a natural outgrowth of the
situation. One did not even see why the young
sailor should assume as a matter of course that he
3
34 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
could carry more liquor than Domville, on whom he
had never set eyes until that moment. The third
act returned to the key of sentiment, but pitched it
too high. To this day I am quite in the dark as to
why Lord Devenish's gloves on Mrs. Peverel's table
should produce such a momentous revolution in
Domville's frame of mind. He has not the slightest
shadow of reason for suspecting that she is in league
with his lordship to entrap him into marriage, and
apparently he does not suspect anything of the sort.
The mere remembrance of Lord Devenish seems to
throw him into a sudden and motiveless frenzy, in
which he sacrifices his own happiness and that of
Mrs. Peverel to a chance recollection of his not very
effectual call to the priesthood. Of course, I mis-
understand his motives; of course, he "has grounds
more relative than this": but the fact remains that
Mr. James has failed to make his hero's conduct
comprehensible to a very attentive and, I hope he
will believe, a very sympathetic listener. The staging
of the play was perfect in every respect, and the
acting was, on the whole, admirable. Mr. Alexander,
Mr. Waring, and Mr. Esmond were all excellent;
only Mr. Elliot, as Lord Devenish, did not seem
quite to catch the tone either of the period or of the
particular play. Miss Marion Terry was charming as
Mrs. Peverel ; Miss Millard did all that was possible
with the part of Mary Brasier; and Miss Irene
"AN INNOCENT ABROAD." 35
Vanbrugh, as Fanny, played her little scene in the
third act very cleverly.
V.
"AN INNOCENT ABROAD" "HIGH LIFE BELOW
STAIRS" "A PAIR OF SPECTACLES."
2 yd January.
IT is rather sad to see the theatre* to which, in our
memories, there still clings a faint aroma of Sweet
Lavender, given over to such work as An Innocent
Abroad, and the actor who created Dick Phenyl
wasting his quaintness on the Tobias Pilkingtons of
fifth-rate farce. Mr. W. Stokes Craven's play, how-
ever, will probably serve its turn. It is an errant-
husband buffoonery of the most conventional type ;
but it does not stand on the lowest level of workman-
ship, and there are some really diverting situations in
the last act. This act Mr. Terry has all to himself,
but in the earlier scenes it is Mr. Ernest Hendrie,
rather than Mr. Terry, that holds the play together
by the grim humour of his impersonation of a prize-
fighter.
As an afterpiece to An Innocent Abroad, Mr. Terry
* Terry's. An Innocent Abro.id and High Life Below Stairs
ran from January 14 to March 16.
36 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
produced "the Musical Farce in one act, entitled
High Life Below Stairs, by the Rev. James Townley."
Poor Mr. Townley ! He got no credit for his work
while he lived, for the piece was generally attributed
to Garrick ; and now that he is dead he comes in for
all the discredit of an outrageous mutilation and
stultification of a really humorous and pleasant satire.
Mr. Terry omits a good half of the dialogue (the
original play is in two acts), introduces, if I am not
mistaken, one or two reminiscences from Sam Weller's
celebrated "swarry" at Bath, and, for the rest, gives
his whole mind to frigid, grotesque, and often wholly
incomprehensible malapropisms and meaningless
perversions of words. How far tradition may be
responsible for this bedevilment of the text I do not
know ; but, tradition or no tradition, it is foolish and
unworthy. . I am far from regarding High Life Below
Stairs as a classic into which it would be sacrilege to
introduce a single "gag"; but in this case the gagging
is reckless and childish. The little caricature-comedy
for it scarcely deserves to rank as a mere farce
would well repay careful and artistic revival. It is,
indeed, an ingeniously double-barrelled satire. Pro-
fessing to display the corruption of the servants' hall, it
in reality satirises the affectations of the coffee-house
and the boudoir. "What an impertinent piece of assur-
ance it is in these fellows," says Freeman, "to affect
and imitate their masters' manners ! " Whereupon
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL." 37
Lovel very justly replies, "What manners must those
be which they can imitate? " The piece was originally
played (in 1759) by Palmer and King, Mrs. Clive and
Mrs. Abington. Mr. Terry and his comrades reduce
it to the level of a music-hall "sketch."
That charming fairy-tale A Pair of Spectacles* the
condensed milk of human kindness has been revived
at the Garrick, and, with Mr. Hare, Mr. Groves, and
Miss Kate Rorke in their original parts, goes as
merrily as ever. Mr. Gilbert Hare cleverly replaces
Mr. Sydney Brough as Dick, Mr. Allan Aynesworth
is good as Percy, and Miss Mabel Terry Lewis made
a pleasant and promising first appearance in the part
of Lucy Lorimer.
VI.
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENTJS WELL."
Pall Mall Budget, 31 st January.
A PERFORMANCE of the Irving Amateur Dramatic
Club at St. George's Hallf last week gave me an
opportunity of seeing a play as yet unknown to me
on the stage Airs Well that Ends Well. I never
miss a chance of "bagging" a new Shakespeare,
and adding its scalp, or, in plain language, its play-
* January 17 March 9. t January 22 and 24.
38 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
bill, to my collection. As I enjoy the proud privilege
of being an Englishman (a pen pres\ and not a
German, I shall certainly go to my grave without
having seen anything like the full cycle of his
playable plays. My ambition stops short of Troilus
and Cressida, which was not intended for the stage,
and of Titus Andronicus, which is absurd; but now
that All's Well is bagged, there still remain The
Tempest, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Richard II.,
the second part of Henry IV., the whole of Henry
VI. (which, after all, is part of our great historical
epos, and is so treated in Germany), the Comedy of
Errors, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona* unacted
in my time. Several of the others I have seen only
once, presented by amateurs Love's Labour's Lost,
Measure for Measute, 'and Henry IV., Part I. Mr.
Beerbohm Tree once played King John, at the Crystal
Palace, several years ago; Cymbeline I have seen
only in the provinces; ax\& Julius Casar, perhaps the
most magnificent acting play ever written, has been
performed in London, and admirably performed,
within the memory of man but by a German
company.
Far be it from me to maintain that all or any of
these plays ought to be constantly represented; but is
it utterly chimerical to dream of a theatre at which
* These two comedies have since been produced, the one by
amateurs (see Art. LI I. ), the other by Mr. Daly (see Art. XXXIV. ).
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL." 39
no year should pass without a revival for a few nights
of one or two of the less-known Shakespearian plays,
so that the whole repertory should be passed in
review once in ten years or so ? The Germans
possess such theatres; we poverty-stricken islanders
cannot afford one. But I perceive I am trenching
on the inflammatory topic of the Municipal or En-
dowed Theatre, which causes angry passions to rise
in many otherwise equanimous bosoms. I sheer off
hastily with the confession that Airs Wei! that Ends
Well, which forms the text of my discourse, is not in
itself a very great loss to the theatre. Julius Ccesar,
Coriolanus, Cymbeline, and the two parts of Henry IV.
are plays which could really be made to live for a
modern audience not so All's Well. Hazlitt calls
it " one of the most pleasing of our author's comedies,"
but I think a " dis " has dropped out before " pleas-
ing." Despite its extraordinary inequalities of style,
indeed, it is pleasant enough reading, though I don't
know but that I would rather read Boccaccio's story
in his own words. In any case, a story may be
delightful in "the golden pages of Boccaccio," and
very much the reverse when expanded and realised
on the stage.
In a romance, a fairy-tale (and practically this is
nothing else), we have a right to look for some
resting-place for our sympathies; where are we to
find it here? In plain latter-day English, Bertram
40 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
is a snob, Helena an adventuress. I turn to one of
the latest German commentators, Dr. Louis Lewes,
author of The Women of Shakespeare, and I find that
" Helena's love is passionate, spiritual, free from all
egotism"! "Her position," Dr. Lewes proceeds,
" is not only unhappy, it offends our taste, and yet
her character rises in inward sincerity, touching
nobility, and beauty, above the unworthiness of her
condition." Character, in other words, is independent
of conduct, and love which has recourse to tyranny
and perfidy in order to gain its ends shall be held
" free from all egotism " if only the young lady ex-
presses herself nobly and poetically. If Bertram had
promised Helena marriage, even if he had betrayed
and deserted her, one must still have questioned her
taste and dignity in carrying her breach of promise
suit to the King's Bench in such a spirit of intrigue
and chicanery. But there is no suggestion that
Bertram ever breathed a word of love to Helena.
She simply made up her sincere and noble mind to
marry him willy-nilly, and she carried her point by
methods which, if used by a man towards a woman,
would brand him as a villain of the deepest dye, and
earn him the execrations of every gallery in Christen-
dom. The thing is a fairy-tale, and as a fairy-tale it
pleases the imagination, on its sensual rather than its
spiritual side. On the plane of real life, Shake-
spearolatry alone can find the fable edifying or
" AN ARTIST'S MODEL." 41
attractive. The text had been so carefully bowd-
lerised for the Irving Club that the story would
scarcely have been comprehensible to any one who
did not know it beforehand. Miss Olive Kennett
played Helena with dignity and intelligence, Mrs.
Herbert Morris made a charming Diana, and Miss
Lena Heinekey a good Countess of Rousillon. The
male performers were passable, but undistinguished.
VII.
"AN ARTIST'S MODEL."
6tk February,
WHEN you have in one company Miss Marie Tem-
pest, and Miss Letty Lind, and Miss Lottie Venne
(the "and" in the modern playbill is equivalent to
the star type of bygone days), to say nothing of Mr.
Hayden Coffin, Mr. Eric Lewis, Mr. W. Blakeley, and
a host of other melodious and comical and generally
"clever" people, it really matters very little what you
give them to do. That ( seems to have been the
principle which inspired Mr. George Edwardes in
providing a successor to A Gaiety Girl, and I am
far from saying that he was mistaken. Given these
"clever people," with gay costumes and sparkling
music, and the piece will practically make itself in
42 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
the course of a few nights. Or, no, I am wrong-
the piece will disappear, and the entertainment will
make itself. Somewhere near the beginning of The
Ring and the Book (the exact reference I cannot give,
but I have good reason for believing that it must be
near the beginning) Browning tells us how goldsmiths
will sometimes mix their metal with alloy, to make
it workable, eliminating the alloy by some chemical
process when the ring or bracelet has been fashioned.
The libretto of An Artisfs Model* I take it, serves
the purpose of this alloy : it must be practically
eliminated before the " comedy " can be said to
have reached its definitive state. I only wish the
chemical action had set in at the last rehearsals,
instead of being left to the first performances. How-
ever, in work of this class it's never too late to cut,
and the Artisfs Model of a week hence will, no doubt,
be a totally different thing from the Artisfs Model of
Saturday evening. Mr. "Owen Hall," indeed, seems
to have gone to work in a scientific spirit, and deter-
mined to achieve a really popular entertainment on
the principle of the survival of the fittest. "With
the lavishness of Mother Nature herself," one fancies
him saying, " I will send forth all the children of my
teeming fantasy. The weaklings will inevitably go to
* Daly's Theatre, February 2. Transferred to Lyric Theatre,
May 28 September 6. Reproduced at Daly's ("Second
Edition "), September 28 still running.
"AN ARTIST'S MODEL." 43
the wall, and those which emerge from the struggle
for existence will prove themselves, by that very fact,,
the best adapted to their conditions. Why should I
trouble to polish and select ? I will pour at the feet
of the audience all my wealth of invention and wit,
and say to them, 'Ladies and gentlemen, you pays-
your money, and you takes your choice ! ' ' Those
of the first-night audience who had paid their money
did indeed take their choice with considerable em-
phasis.
I have a very sincere liking for the class of enter-
tainment to which An Artist's Model belongs. As it
began with In Town, I presume we may assign to
Mr. "Adrian Ross" the credit of its invention.
These musical farces are certainly an immense im-
provement on the old-fashioned burlesques and third-
rate operettas which they have so largely supplanted.
I believe there is a future before this admirably supple
and adaptable art-form. Elaborate plot and nicely-
jointed structure would obviously be out of place in
it ; but we need not therefore conclude that it ought
to be quite without form and void. That is Mr.
" Owen Hall's " mistake. Emptiness and incoher-
ence can never be to the advantage of any dramatic
production. It is not that Mr. " Hall " has no storj-
to tell. On the contrary, he has three or four;
but they have no discoverable connection with one
another, only one of them (the semi-sentimental story
44 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
of Adele and Rudolf Blair) is comprehensible, and that
one is mortally tedious. In process of time (and the
sooner the better) all attempt to make the plot or plots
comprehensible will, no doubt, be abandoned, and
the piece will become a series of frankly incoherent
musical and farcical scenes. It will then, I fancy, be
very attractive, for Mr. Harry Greenbank's verses are
bright and ingenious, and Mr. Sidney Jones's music
is often very taking. But it would be a great pity,
almost a disaster, if the success of so invertebrate a
production were to be taken as establishing the prin-
ciple that a musical farce means a mere stirabout of
" turns." As for the so-called audacities of the
dialogue, it would be merely playing into the hands
of their inventor, or inventors, to make much of them.
It is true there are one or two childishly silly lines,
pieces of gross ill-manners, that make one marvel how
adult human beings can think it worth while to devise
them, or can be persuaded to speak them on the
stage ; but it would be absurd to pretend that they
do any particular harm. The rumour of them may
keep some people away from the production ; I cannot
imagine that it can possibly bring any one to see it.
For instance, a schoolmistress, passing her pupils in
review, bids one of them step forward, and says,
"This young lady is leaving us; she has to go home ;
her father and mother are going to be married."
Charming, isn't it ? So ingenious ! So humorous !
"AN ARTIST'S MODEL." 45
Think of the great, daring intellect that conceived it !
Well, if you like that sort of thing, there are one or
two other coruscations of the same nature to delight
you. The audience, somehow, did not take cordially
to them, and they may possibly have flickered out ere
now, the meteors of one glorious evening
"Or like the lightning that doth cease to be
Ere one can say ' It lightens ' ! "
But invented they were, and spoken they were ; and,
as aforesaid, if they pleased Mr. "Owen Hall," I
don't see that they hurt any one, unless it were Mr.
George Edwardes and his syndicate. In the first act,
a girl who has run away from school, dressed as a
boy, wanders into a studio where a number of artists
are at work. " I believe she's a girl ! " whispers one
of these gentlemen to his comrades, and then, turning
to the pretended boy, he says, " Come, you shall sit
to us for the Young Apollo ! " " In what way ? " she
asks. " Like this ! " he replies, holding up a drawing
of a nude figure. And thereupon the young gentle-
men surround her, and make as though to take off
her clothes, until she is driven to confess her sex.
Since Mr. Pigott has officially vouched for this scene
(and we all know how particular he is), no doubt it is
all right ; but one cannot help wondering whether art
students are really such unspeakable cads.
Miss Marie Tempest, who plays the title-part, is
46 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
the best singer we have heard for years in this class
of work. Her song with the refrain " On y revient
toujours " will probably become popular, and some of
the sentimental music allotted to her and Mr. Hayden
Coffin is very pretty. Miss Letty Lind is charming
as the runaway schoolgirl in the first act, and dances
a sort of glorified " cellar-flap " dance which brought
the house down. Her song and dance in the second
act ("A torn-tit lived in a tip-top tree") are also
among the hits of the piece. Miss Lottie Venne is
very bright in a not very brilliant part, and Miss
Leonora Braham is quite thrown away upon a char-
acter in which she has no opportunities either for
singing or acting. Mr. Eric Lewis, too, plays a most
ineffective part. In fact, the stage is so crowded
with " clever people " that they cannot possibly find
elbow-room for their cleverness. Mr. Blakeley con-
trives to be droll in his own peculiar way as a studio
attendant, and Mr. Yorke Stephens wanders aimlessly
and amiably through the play in the character of an
amateur painter. Mr. Maurice Farkoa, Mr. E. M.
Robson, and Mr. Lawrence D'Orsay are all good in
their way; and the ladies of the chorus are excellent
in their way that is, in the way of good-looks.
" A LEADER OF MEN." 47
VIII.
"A LEADER OF MEN."
February.
MR. COMYNS CARR has shown public spirit as well as
managerial policy in producing A Leader of Men* the
maiden effort of a new playwright. The penny-wise
economists of stageland will no doubt suggest that I
ought to have said "public spirit rather than man-
agerial policy"; but I believe that, rightly understood,
the two things are coincident. Even from the
narrowest box-office point of view, what can be more
important to a manager than to keep up a good supply
of new plays ? He lives by vending plays ; if there
are no vendible plays to be had, or if the supply is so
scanty that he has to scramble with other managers
in the struggle to secure them at any cost, his always
aleatory calling becomes trebly precarious. But how
is the supply of plays to be kept up (now that the
export trade from France has almost ceased) unless
new playwrights are from time to time discovered and
encouraged? Dramatists do not drop ready-made
from the skies. However great their diligence and
devotion, they cannot even, like poets or painters,
master their art within the four walls of their private
workshop. It is only on the stage itself, in contact
* Comedy Theatre, February 9 March 8.
48 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
first with the actors and then with the audience, that
they can learn the ultimate secrets of their mystery.
For the opportunity of acquiring this knowledge they
are dependent on managers ; and if the managers say,
" You need not come to us until you are accomplished
and recognised playwrights," how are they ever to
achieve accomplishment and recognition? Make a
law that no one is to enter the water until he can
swim, and the art of swimming will very soon be
extinct. "But the prentice playwright," you say,
" can plash about at his ease in the shallow water of
the matinee." Yes, if he has ^150 or 200 to spare
for each plunge; but he will learn next to nothing
from matinee actors and audiences, nor will managers
and critics learn anything to the purpose about him
and his talent. Take A Leader of Men, for example
if it had been produced at a trial matinee, its author
would have gained no experience worth the having,
and would have been almost as far as ever from getting
really into touch with managers, critics, and public.
A matinee given by a manager, with the same
actors whom he would have employed in an evening
production, is of course a somewhat different affair.
This enables us to see the play in its true perspective,
and any little difference there may be in the composi-
tion of the audience can easily be allowed for. If
Mr. Comyns Carr had chosen, in the first instance, to
put on A Leader of Men in the afternoon, he would
" A LEADER OF MEN." 49
certainly have done well ; but he did much better to
submit it to the one really decisive test that of a
regular evening production. He mounted it quite
adequately, without ostentatious expense; and with-
out scouring London for a "star combination," he
filled every part sufficiently, and some admirably.
Whether he will make any profit on this particular
venture it is impossible to say. If he does not, I
fancy no one will be less surprised than he. But he
has given a young man of talent a chance, and thus
helped to keep the ball rolling. If Mr. " Charles E.
D. Ward " does not profit by the opportunity, the fault
is not Mr. Carr's ; and, after all, there is no great
harm done. If he does profit by it, and becomes an
effective addition to our little group of playwrights,
Mr. Carr will not only have rendered the stage a
substantial service, but will have secured for himself
a first claim upon the maturer work of the new man.
Of course I do not ignore or under-estimate
the risks which a manager runs in essaying untried
talent, or the temptation he naturally feels to stick to
big ventures with playwrights of established fame.
The long-run system, with its attendant habit of
luxurious mounting, necessarily makes managers chary
of facing the loss, of prestige as well as of money,
involved in a failure or even in what may be called
a semi-success. Therefore I heartily agree with Mr.
Bernard Shaw that if the managers were wise they
4
50 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
ought to combine to subsidise some sort of Indepen-
dent Theatre as a nursery for dramatists, instead of
turning a cold shoulder to every enterprise of the
kind. But since such corporate spirit and insight
into the essential facts of the situation are scarcely to
be looked for at present, there is all the more reason
to applaud the individual intelligence and liberality
of Mr. Comyns Carr.
The chances are about even, I should say, that his
insight will be justified in the case of Mr. Ward, if so
we must call him. He is clearly an able man ; it yet
remains to be seen whether Nature has endowed him
with the specific faculty of the dramatist. The only
portion of that complex faculty which is unmistakably
apparent in A Leader of Men is the gift of eloquence,
of high-pitched rhetoric. The passages where the
drama really stirred us were all declamatory; but
this must be recorded to the author's credit the
effect sometimes lay in a really dramatic contrast
between the declamation and the answer to it. For
instance, when Robert Llewelyn has delivered a long
harangue in denunciation of Mrs. Dundas's supposed
perfidy, she, having listened in absolute silence,
replies, "Every word you say is music to me," or
something to that effect, and makes a motion as
though to kneel before him. . The very depth of his
feeling, the very ardour of his resentment, has shown
her that she was wrong in suspecting him of insincere
"A LEADER OF MEN." 51
Don Juanism; and the contrast between the intention
of his diatribe and the effect it produces is not only
pretty but essentially dramatic. The other telling
passages in the play were Llewelyn's onslaught on
his treacherous henchman, Mr. Stone; Mrs. Dundas's
protest against the idea of returning to her husband ;
Mrs. Ellis's address for the prosecution and Mrs.
Dundas's plea for the defence, in the third act ; and
Farquhar's appeal to Llewelyn not to leave his party
in the lurch for the sake of a seemingly faithless
woman all passages of copious, emphatic, balanced
oratory, vigorously written, without offensive' high-
falutin, but all somewhat lacking in the rapid give-and-
take which denotes the handiwork of the dramatist as
distinguished from the rhetorician. I am very far
from denying that impassioned rhetoric is a legitimate
weapon in the dramatist's armoury; but he should
try to bring his quick-firing guns freely into play, and
not keep pounding away all the time with his hundred-
tonners. Mr. Ward's formula for a thrilling scene is
to let some one take the stage and overwhelm some
one else with such a torrent of denunciation or appeal
that he can scarcely get a word in edgewise. In
lighter, brighter, and subtler passages, his dialogue
scarcely gets over the footlights. The exchange of
sarcasms between Llewelyn and Mrs. Dundas over
the afternoon tea-table is improbable and ineffective ;
the light love-scenes between Barbara Deane and
52 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Carnforth are conventional and trivial; and a good
deal of the wit in what may be called the "connective"
passages to use a physiological metaphor is not at
all scenic in its quality. For example She : " You
Radicals want so many hopeless changes." He: "No,
we want to change the laws that make so many
hopeless." This is not very brilliant at best, and it
is mere waste of time to speak it on the stage. On
the other hand, there are a good many really happy
sayings, and none that are inept or vulgar.
In all this I may seem to have been trifling round the
outskirts of the play, instead of going straight for the
essential questions of theme and structure. But in
the work of a new writer, theme and structure are not,
to my thinking, the essential matters. It would be
nothing less than a miracle if he had entirely mastered
his theme or put his play together with the deftness
of an expert. The real question is, " Does he seem
to possess the touch, the fingering, as it has been
called, of the dramatist?" and that reveals itself
rather in details, and especially in style, than in the
general structure of the play. Coming now to the
larger but not more important questions, one can only
say that Mr. Ward has touched upon two excellent
themes, without taking a very firm grasp of either.
Theme No. i is the position of a woman legally
bound to an unpardonably vicious and brutal hus-
band, when a new love enters into her life. This
"A LEADER OF MEN." 53
is an old, old story, but there is no reason why it
should not recur in drama so long as it recurs every
day in life. Theme No. 2 is the position of a " leader
of men," who is called upon to choose between his
duty to his party, to his ideal, and his passion for a
woman. This is a much more novel theme, taken,
as we all know, direct from life, and full of dramatic
possibilities. Behind it lies a third theme, in which
there is a great play for the man who has the power
to handle it the question whether, and how far,
notorious irregularities of private conduct ought to
disable a man from public service. This third theme
Mr. Ward never approaches, either in intention or in
fact. The second one he misses, because he does
not show us that there is any absolute necessity for
Llewelyn to choose between his love and his Bill.
His determination to retire from public life is
gratuitous, or at any rate premature. We are given
to understand that the triumph or defeat of his Bill
depends upon the question whether or not he goes
down to the House to support it on a given evening,
and there is nothing in his relation to Mrs. Dundas
to prevent his doing so. Later on, no doubt, theme
No. 3 might arise, and he might be forced to sacrifice
his career to his entanglement. But this particular
Bill is all that appears on the record, so to speak; it
is in it that we are asked to interest ourselves, and
we cannot of our own accord carry forward our
54 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
interest to more or less remote contingencies. If he
sacrifices this momentous measure because it is
uncertain whether he, personally, will be able to reap
the fruits of victory, he is a fool and a traitor, and we
don't care a straw what becomes of him. All this
merely implies that the author's skill has been insuffi-
cient to give consistent dramatic form to the idea in
his mind. Again, he lets theme No. i slip through
his fingers at the crucial moment, by killing off the
inconvenient husband. He has (to all appearance)
claimed our sympathy for the wife's revolt throughout
the first two acts; and then, in the last, he makes
her abandon her whole position with a cry of horror
the moment she hears that this brute of a husband
(whom, pray observe, she never really loved) is
seriously ill. This may be nay, it is eminently
feminine; but it is also a trifle feminine on the
author's part to solve a problem, fairly and squarely
stated, by the help of an intervention of Providence
and a nervous revulsion on the part of his heroine.
For the rest, there is no real character or analysis in
the play. The protagonists are ideal personages, and
the rest are shadows. Instead of choosing one or
other of his themes and working it out firmly and
consistently, the author has jumbled them together
and relied for his dramatic interest on a series of
misunderstandings and explanations, all brought about
by external, mechanical, and generally rather clumsy
"A LEADER OF MEN." 55
means. There is good reason to hope that Mr.
Ward can do much better than this. In the mean-
time, he has, at least, the fundamental faculty for
keeping an audience interested and amused.
Miss Marion Terry as Mrs. Dundas was charming
throughout, and quite brought the house down in her
great scenes. In one little passage she seemed to
me rather to miss an opportunity the very pretty
confession to the Archdeacon near the beginning of
the second act. Miss Alma Murray played with
great tact a part which might easily have been
rendered odious; and Miss May Harvey was bright
and pleasing in a character which gave her no great
opportunities. The author's style offered some, but
scarcely a sufficient, excuse for Mr. Fred Terry's
outrageously declamatory performance of Llewelyn;
and the same defect, in a minor degree, marred Mr.
H. B. Irving's Farquhar. Mr. Irving should guard
against an unnatural pitch of voice to which he is
rather inclined. Mr. Wyes contributed a capital bit
of character in Morton Stone, M.P., and Mr. Will
Dennis, Mr. Sydney Brough, and Miss Le Thiere
were all good.
The revival of Mr. Harry Paulton's burlesque,
entitled Babes* at the Strand Theatre, is noteworthy
only because of the interpolated scene in which Mr.
Edouin introduces the Heathen Chinee, who delighted
* February 4 February 9 (?).
55 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
us so much in Blue Beard at the Globe, I am afraid
to think how many years ago. This is really a
diverting impersonation. Mr. Edouin might do
worse than get some sort of an extravaganza
" written round it."
IX.
"THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST"
" THOROUGH-BRED " " AN M.P.'s WIFE."
February.
THE dramatic critic is not only a philosopher, moralist,
sesthetician, and stylist, but also a labourer working
for his hire. In this last capacity he cares nothing
for the classifications of Aristotle, Polonius, or any
other theorist, but instinctively makes a fourfold
division of the works which come within his ken.
These are his categories: (i) Plays which are good
to see. (2) Plays which are good to write about.
(3) Plays which are both. (4) Plays which are neither.
Class 4 is naturally the largest; Class 3 the smallest;
and Classes i and 2 balance each other pretty evenly.
Mr. Oscar Wilde's new comedy, The Importance of Being
Earnest* belongs indubitably to the first class. It is
* February 12 May 8.
" IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST." 57
delightful to see, it sends wave after wave of laughter
curling and foaming round the theatre; but as a text
for criticism it is barren and delusive. It is like a
mirage-oasis in the desert, grateful and comforting to
the weary eye but when you come close up to
it, behold ! it is intangible, it eludes your grasp.
What can a poor critic do with a play which raises
no principle, whether of art or morals, creates its
own canons and conventions, and is nothing but an
absolutely wilful expression of an irrepressibly witty
personality? Mr. Pater, I think (or is it some one
else?), has an essay on the tendency of all art to
verge towards, and merge in, the absolute art
music. He might have found an example in The
Importance of Being Earnest, which imitates nothing,
represents nothing, means nothing, is nothing, except
a sort of rondo caprictioso, in which the artist's fingers
run with crisp irresponsibility up and down the key-
board of life. Why attempt to analyse and class
such a play ? Its theme, in other hands, would have
made a capital farce; but "farce" is far too gross
and commonplace a word to apply to such an irides-
cent filament of fantasy. Incidents of the same
nature as Algy Moncrieffe's " Bunburying " and John
Worthing's invention and subsequent suppression of
his scapegrace brother Ernest have done duty in \
many a French vaudeville and English adaptation;
but Mr. Wilde's humour transmutes them into some-
58 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
thing entirely new and individual. Amid so much
that is negative, however, criticism may find one
positive remark to make. Behind all Mr. Wilde's
whim and even perversity, there lurks a very genuine
science, or perhaps I should rather say instinct, of
the theatre. In all his plays, and certainly not least
in this one, the story is excellently told and illustrated
with abundance of scenic detail. Monsieur Sarcey
himself (if Mr. Wilde will forgive my saying so)
would "chortle in his joy" over John Worthing's
entrance in deep mourning (even down to his cane)
to announce the death of his brother Ernest, when
we know that Ernest in the flesh a false but un-
deniable Ernest is at that moment in the house
making love to Cecily. The audience does not
instantly awaken to the meaning of his inky suit, but
even as he marches solemnly down the stage, and
before a word is spoken, you can feel the idea
kindling from row to row, until a " sudden glory "
of laughter fills the theatre. It is only the born
playwright who can imagine and work up to such an
effect. Not that the play is a masterpiece of con-
struction. It seemed to me that the author's
invention languished a little after the middle of the
second act, and .that towards the close of that act
there were even one or two brief patches of some-
thing almost like tediousness. But I have often
noticed that the more successful the play, the more a
"IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST." 59
first-night audience is apt to be troubled by inequali-
ties of workmanship, of which subsequent audiences
are barely conscious. The most happily -inspired
scenes, coming to us with the gloss of novelty upon
them, give us such keen pleasure, that passages
which are only reasonably amusing are apt to seem,
by contrast, positively dull. Later audiences,
missing the shock of surprise which gave to the
master-scenes their keenest zest, are also spared our
sense of disappointment in the flatter passages, and
enjoy the play more evenly all through. I myself, on
seeing a play a second time, have often been greatly
entertained by scenes which had gone near to boring
me on the first night. When I see Mr. Wilde's play
again, I shall no doubt relish the last half of the
second act more than I did on Thursday evening;
and even then I differed from some of my colleagues
who found the third act tedious. Mr. Wilde is least
fortunate where he drops into Mr. Gilbert's Palace-of-
Truth mannerism, as he is apt to do in the characters
of Gwendolen and Cecily. Strange what a fascina-
tion this trick seems to possess for the comic play-
wright ! Mr. Pinero, Mr. Shaw, and now Mr. Wilde,
have all dabbled in it, never to their advantage. In
the hands of its inventor it produces pretty effects
enough ;
But Gilbert's magic may not copied be ;
Within that circle none should walk but he.
60 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
The acting is as hard to write about as the play.
It is all good; but there is no opportunity for any
striking excellence. The performers who are most
happily suited are clearly Mr. Allan Aynesworth and
Miss Rose Leclercq, both of whom are delightful.
Mr. Alexander gives his ambition a rest, and fills his
somewhat empty part with spirit and elegance. Miss
Irene Vanbrugh makes a charmingly sophisticated
maiden of Mayfair, and Miss Evelyn Millard, if not
absolutely in her element as the unsophisticated
Cecily, is at least graceful- and pleasing. Mrs.
Canninge and Mr. H. H. Vincent complete a very
efficient cast.
There are some genuinely amusing passages in
the last act of Mr. Ralph Lumley's "comic play"
Thorough-Bred* produced last week at Toole's
Theatre. If you ask me why Mr. Toole, Mr.
Fitzroy Morgan, and Mr. Shelton appear on the
Ascot racecourse in the disguise of nigger minstrels,
I really cannot tell you possibly because I did not
follow the earlier acts with the attention demanded
by their extreme intricacy of plot. But whatever the
* February 14 March 23 ; after the first night or two, Mr.
Toole was prevented by illness from appearing. The piece
was reproduced on Easter Monday, April 15, and ran till
June 8, Mr. Rutland Barrington taking Mr. Toole's original
character during the greater part of the time. Mr. Toole
himself reappeared in it September 3 September 28, when it
was stated that his lease of the theatre expired.
"AN M.P.'S WIFE." 6 1
reason or no-reason, the scene is laughable, and so is
Mr. Van Decker's wooing. The audience seemed
to be pleased with the earlier acts as well, and the
whole piece is at least quite harmless and unpre-
tending. Mr. Toole was evidently suffering severe
pain on the first night, but got through his part
bravely; and Mr. C. M. Lowne gave a really clever and
finished performance of a good-humoured American
the best character and the best-acted in the play.
Miss Henrietta Watson and Miss Cora Poole played
with agreeable vivacity, and Messrs. Fitzroy Morgan
and E. A. Coventry were now and then amusing.
"I should have told him everything before we
were married," says the lady who gives its title to
An M.P.'s Wife* adapted from a novel by Mr.
Thomas Terrell, and produced at the Opera Comique
last Saturday. She is quite right, she certainly
should; but, as things turned out, her omission to
do so didn't in the least matter. The play, in short,
is feebly conceived, clumsily constructed, and badly
written. It does not rise above the most ordinary
matinee level. Miss T. White played the heroine
with more earnestness than skill; Mr. W. Herbert
was solid and satisfactory as her husband; and Mr.
Charles Glenney imported a certain originality into
the part of her cast-off lover by playing a passionate
* February 15 "for six nights only." Mr. Frederick de
Lara's season.
62 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
parting scene ("Ruth, perhaps to-night will be the
last time we shall ever meet!" and so forth) with
his left hand immovably in his pocket !
X.
"GENTLEMAN JOE."*
6th March.
IT is odd how a trifling circumstance will sometimes
break through the veils of Habit and enable one to
see a familiar thing in its essence, as something quite
new and strange. It happened on Saturday night
that I arrived at the Prince of Wales's Theatre a little
late; only a very little, and I had an end stall. The
performance, at all events, was in full swing ; I had
plunged straight out of the real world into the world
of convention, with nothing to break the shock. The
rest of the audience had waited some time in the
garish theatre; the rhythms of the overture had got
into their blood; they were strung up to concert pitch.
I, on the other hand, coming in cold blood (literally
as well as figuratively) from the greasy, grimy gloom
of Coventry Street into this scene of glittering make-
believe, saw it for the moment with unaccustomed
eyes; and I cannot tell you how strange and melan-
* March 2 still running.
"GENTLEMAN JOE." 63
choly, and above all how unspeakably senseless and
vulgar, it seemed to me. You see, I was morbidly
conscious of the glare, and had not, like the rest of
the audience, fallen under the glamour. The scene,
a villa garden with house and verandah in the back-
ground, was crowded with people maidservants,
menservants, policemen, soldiers, tradesmen all in
everyday costume only a trifle more gaudy than
usual. In front, a little lady, dressed like a house-
maid on her day out, was singing in a shrill voice this
refrain:
" O my ! O my ! O my, my, my !
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry !
I'll never forget, if I try till I die,
What I felt in that there wink of an eye ! "
The refrain over, she at once began to caper about the
stage, vigorously, and I have no doubt cleverly, but
without the least pretence at grace, revealing billowy
whirlpools of green skirt and stocking under her black
gown. And, at a given moment, behold ! all the rest
of the people on the stage began to caper too. They
faced each other in pairs, and set to jigging it grown
men and women not in figures, not in elaborate
steps, not pretending to express any emotion or any
dramatic idea, but simply bobbing up and down to
the music, as though seized with an acute paroxysm
of St. Vitus's dance. Of course I am not describing
anything new. The scene is absolutely familiar to all
64 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
of us, though perhaps the stage-management was in
this case a little more epileptic than usual. It is a
purely subjective phenomenon that I am recording :
a mood in which the grotesqueness of the whole thing
grown men and women capering like Bedlamites
for the delectation of grown men and women
suddenly came over me. I was for the nonce in the
position of the traditional deaf man at a ball ; but
the deaf man, if the dancing was good and he watched
it carefully, would probably be able to divine some-
thing of the rhythm of a waltz or mazurka, and to
realise that the dancers were obeying a' certain law,
and enjoying, pair by pair, a complex harmony in the
movements of their bodies. Here there was no har-
mony, scarcely any skill, less than no beauty. The
whole thing was inspired by a mere conventional and
insensate lust of movement for movement's sake. And
when the song was encored, the chorus gravely
trooped back to their stations, and at the proper
moment set to jigging it anew, for all the world like
the puppets in a clockwork raree-show when you put
a penny in the slot. Of course we have all seen the
same thing a hundred times; yet for the moment it
could scarcely have seemed more odd and incredible
to me if I had dropped straight from Mars.
But presently the planetary mood wore off. Mr.
Arthur Roberts came on the scene, and I fell under
the witchery of his art. I could say with the poet :
" GENTLEMAN JOE." 65
\
" O my, my, my !
I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry !
I can never express, if I try till I die,
What I think of the wink of that glittering eye ! "
Seriously, he was irresistibly comic, and the produc-
tion as a whole is by no means the worst of its class.
Mr. Basil Hood writes spirited and clever rhymes
not so witty, perhaps, as Mr. " Adrian Ross's " or
even Mr. Harry Greenbank's, but infinitely better
than the inane stuff that passed for verse in the
Byron Reece and Farnie times. Mr. Walter Slaughter's
music struck me as skilful and tuneful, and some of
the singing was quite pleasant notably Mr. William
Philp's and Miss Ai'da Jenoure's. Miss Kitty Loftus,
as the pretty housemaid, made up in vivacity what
she lacked in voice ; Miss Sadie Jerome, as the
American heiress, carried everything before her in
virtue of her commanding presence and impetuous
style; Mr. W. H. Denny's talent was unfortunately
wasted on an exceedingly ineffective part. Early in
the evening, there occurred an incident which aptly
illustrated the impossibility of any effectual censorship
by an official who merely sees the written words of a
play. The fascinating cabman, Gentleman Joe, who
has been invited by the pretty housemaid to a
servants' party, arrives at the house and inquires for
Emma. "Hemma," replies the butler, "is getting
ready to see you, and is taking off her things." As
5
66 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
she has just come in from a walk this is a perfectly
natural remark, and any censor who should object to
it might be suspected of almost insane prurience.
But Mr. Arthur Roberts, by the artful intonation of
his " Oh ! " helped out with a leer and a grimace,
converts the innocent remark into an indecency as
palpable as it is senseless. The censor who cannot
keep the low comedian in order is of very little avail;
and I know of only one censor who can.
XL
THE CENSORSHIP.*
Pall Mall Budget, ^th March.
IT is quite possible that before these lines are pub-
lished " the miracle of miracles " may have happened,
and some one who is to-day a person of no import-
ance, rubbing shoulders with the rest of us on the
common earth, may have been snatched up into the
heaven of Court Officialdom, and endowed with abso-
lute, irresponsible power over the destinies of the
English drama. It is a strong testimony to the force
of habit and especially to that ingrained Puritanism
which leads us to regard the stage as a sort of pariah
* Mr. E. F. S. Pigott died February 23. His successor was
not yet appointed.
THE CENSORSHIP. 6/
among institutions, incapable of natural or legal rights
that the tragi-comic absurdity of this arrangement
does not, as it were, strike us in the face. Here is
Mr. A B , or Mr. C D , a minor
journalist or literary man-of-all-work. To-day he is
an ordinary fallible mortal ; his opinion on any
literary or dramatic topic may fetch twopence or
threepence a line in the open market, but is quite
unsuspected of plenary inspiration; to-morrow, be-
cause he knows some one who knows some one who
is in the Lord Chamberlain's Department, that opinion
sets an immovable limit to the growth of a whole
branch of literature, and may block the career and
ruin the fortunes of men far abler and no whit less
honourable than he ! Was there ever a more fantastic
anomaly ?
The late Mr. Pigott I say this with absolute sin-
cerity and after having looked into the matter pretty
closely was probably the least ridiculous Censor we
ever had. The history of his predecessors is farcical
to a degree ; his record presents rather the pathos of
a good man's struggles with adversity. He lived in
difficult times ; troubles thickened around him as the
years went on ; but he came through it all with a
certain mute dignity which one could not but respect.
Well might Mr. Pinero and Mr. H. A. Jones lay
wreaths on his coffin ; they may esteem themselves
fortunate if they find half such an accommodating
68 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
autocrat in his successor. For Mr. Pigott's tact, which
we are all unwearied in praising, was precisely the
quality that served their turn. It was more than tact
it was discretion in the Falstaffian sense of the
term. Mr. Pigott was far too wise, and too sincerely
convinced of the necessity of a Censorship, to make
his office unpopular. The powerful playwright, the
playwright with an actor-manager behind him, might
do or say pretty much what he pleased. For the
showman who approached our autocrat in the char-
acter of managing-director of a wealthy syndicate, his
bounties were infinite. Hence the possibility of The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The Masqueraders, and
The Case of Rebellious Susan on the one hand, The
Gaiety Girl and Go-Bang on the other. It will be
fortunate indeed for Mr. Pinero and Mr. Jones, for
Mr. "Owen Hall" and Mr. "Adrian Ross," if his
successor's " tact " should prove equally sensitive.
It is sometimes supposed that my opposition to the
Censorship springs from, or is embittered by, my
championship of Ibsen. Mr. Pigott himself said as
much before the Select Committee of 1892, and even
hinted that I had a pecuniary interest in the matter.
In that, I think, his tact failed him. It would not
matter one penny piece to me though every line that
Ibsen ever wrote were placed under the Censor's ban.
I have not, and never have had, any pecuniary interest,
definite or contingent, in any representation of a play
THE CENSORSHIP. 69
of Ibsen's, except one single afternoon performance
which took place fifteen years ago, and to which the
Censor offered no opposition. When this was pointed
out to Mr. Pigott, he omitted to apologise or withdraw
his inuendo, which you may read at large on p. 334
of the report of the Committee of 1892. Perhaps
apologies are contrary to the regulations of the Lord
Chamberlain's Department. Moreover, all the argu-
ments I have ever advanced against the Censorship
are to be found in an article by me published in the
Westminster Review in 1883 or 1884, at least five
years before I had translated anything of Ibsen's (the
one play aforesaid again excepted), and before I so
much as dreamt that he would ever become famous
in England or would need any "championing." One
may surely, without suspicion of base or personal
motives, oppose the system which places a great and
beautiful art, absolutely and without appeal, in sub-
jection to the "tact" of a Mr. Pigott.
But in any case, no one can reasonably complain
of Mr. Pigott's treatment of Ibsen. He vetoed one
play Ghosts and he could not possibly do other-
wise. To have licensed it would have been simply to
abdicate his office. There is no getting away from
the fact that the Censorship exists for the protection
of certain institutions, which Ghosts roundly attacks.
If we have a Censorship at all, it must clearly veto
Ghosts ; just as, if we had a literary Censor, he could
70 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
not possibly give his imprimatur to Mr. Grant Allen's
Woman who Did, or to Miss Menie Muriel Dowie's
Gallia. It would be futile to blame Mr. Pigott for
recognising the most elementary obligation of his
office ; the doubt is whether it be the business of good
government to crush art and gag discussion, in order to
protect from without institutions which ought to be able
to defend themselves from within. If that be indeed
the principle of good government, let us carry it out
consistently, make the Archbishop of Canterbury the
censor of literature, and have the Areopagitica burnt
by the common hangman. The fact of his having
risen to the Primacy at least guarantees in the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury a certain measure of exceptional
ability; in the case of the Lord Chamberlain and his
autocrat-underling, this guarantee is entirely lacking.
To blame Mr. Pigott, then, for vetoing Ghosts
would be tantamount to blaming him for not resign-
ing his office. (By the way, Ghosts was never officially
presented to him ; but he was approached on the sub-
ject and was found to regard the play as hopelessly
inadmissible.) All Ibsen's other plays that were
submitted to him he licensed without a murmur.
His reasons you will find set forth in the aforesaid
blue-book. He thought that "all Ibsen's characters
were morally deranged," but that the plays were " too
absurd altogether to be injurious to public morals."
Yet stay! I should not say that he licensed them
THE CENSORSHIP. 71
"without a murmur." When the MS. of Hedda
Gabler was submitted to him, he wrote to the manage-
ment to the effect that a formal licence would follow
in due course, but that they must first send him the
end of the play. "The manuscript submitted," he
said (I quote from memory), " ends with the phrase,
' People don't do such things ! ' which cannot be the
real conclusion." Poor bewildered gentleman ! It
would be curious to know what terrible impropriety
he imagined that the grim old Giant of the North
had kept lurking up his sleeve. I believe, too, that
he advised, without insisting on, the suppression of a
single line in The Pillars of Society; otherwise, he kept
his " kindly blue pencil " entirely in abeyance, so far
as Ibsen was concerned. This was a case in which
his tact, his opportunism, was really beyond reproach.
I earnestly recommend you to study Mr. Pigott's
evidence in the 1892 Blue-Book, which may be bought
of Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode for 43. io|d. He was
evidently an amiable and simple-minded person. He
began by protesting against the term "Censor," which
to many minds, he said, "represents the Star Chamber
and the Inquisition, and all manner of ancient insti-
tutions; whereas my office is simply that of Examiner."
He did not explain in what respect an Examiner who
can secretly and silently suppress a play differs from a
Censor. But this secrecy, you must know, was, in
Mr. Pigott's eyes, the most beneficent characteristic
72 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
of his Examinership. "The essence of my office,"
he said, " and its advantage to the art and professors
of the stage, is that it is preventive, and, above all,
secret; if authors whose plays are rejected choose to
advertise themselves and their rejected plays in the
hopes of getting other orders for similar pieces, that is
their affair, not mine." What childish nonsense ! It
is an " advantage " to an author to have a year's work
annihilated without explanation or appeal ! And if
he does not accept the decree in grateful silence, it
can only be because he hopes to get an order for
another play that shall merit similar annihilation !
Of course, Mr. Pigott was bound, ex, officio, to regard
managers and authors as ribald rascals who would at
once proceed to wallow in indecency if the check of
the Censorship were withdrawn; but one does not
quite understand why he should take them for rank
lunatics.
In the meantime, pending the "miracle of miracles,"
the theatres are getting on as best they may. Mr.
Arthur Roberts appeared on Saturday night at the
Prince of Wales's in a new musical farce entitled
Gentleman Joe, which was received with salvoes of
applause and yells of delight. The plot is quite
inoffensive, but there are one or two passages in the
dialogue which brought to my mind one of the late
Mr. Pigott's charming sayings in the blue-book above
cited. " The public," he remarked, " have sometimes
THE CENSORSHIP. 73
thought that the Examiner's indulgence was carried
too far; but it has sometimes occurred to me that but
for such occasional relaxations the public might
imagine that any restraint was uncalled for, and,
indeed, that there was nothing to restrain." Delight-
ful, is it not? When we find a gross indecency in a
play, we are to understand that the Censor has left it
there of set purpose, as a proof of his vigilance, and a
reminder of its necessity ! And yet Mr. Pigott, say
his biographers, hailed from Somerset, not Ireland.*
* " Mr. Pigott," said the Times of August i, 1874, in
announcing his appointment to the office of Censor, "was
educated at Eton and Balliol, and has been called to the Bar.
Among his qualifications is that of being an excellent French
scholar, and among his foreign friends may be enumerated the
great comedian, M. Regnier, of the Comedie Fran9aise, the
Due d'Aumale, and the late M. Van de Weyer." Here the list
of his qualifications came to an abrupt end ; and it struck
neither the Times nor any one else as at all incongruous that
this estimable journalist, who knew French and a French actor,
should be entrusted with absolute and irresponsible power over
the destinies of the English drama and over the property and
reputation of English dramatists.
74 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
XII.
" SOWING THE WIND."
March.
IN the revival of Mr. Sydney Grundy's Sowing the
Wind at the Comedy Theatre,* the part of Rosamund
was undertaken by Miss Evelyn Millard, who came
very well out of the severe test of following Miss
Winifred Emery at so brief an interval. Miss Millard
has feeling, intelligence, and charm; what she lacks
as yet is the art of indicating the processes of thought
which lie behind her utterance. Her words seem to
flow easily and evenly from the surface of her mind,
not to force their way up, through devious and
intricate channels, from the hidden springs of her
character. She accompanies them with appropriate
and graceful manifestations of emotion, but we feel it
to be the emotion of a reciter touched by her theme
rather than tnat of a woman living through a heart-
rending experience. What we see is not Rosamund
suffering, but Miss Millard sympathising with Rosa-
mund's sufferings. I admit, however, that it is rather
unfair to apply this supersubtle analysis to so charm-
ing a performance. There are very few pieces of
emotional acting to which the same objection might
not plausibly apply; and, after all, the fault may lie
. * March 9 April 6.
" THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH." 75
rather in the critic's momentary mood than in the
art of the actress. Mr. H. B. Irving was scarcely
convincing as Lord Petworth. The curl on his fore-
head, by the way, gave him a curious resemblance
to Lord Beaconsfield. Mr. Brandon Thomas, Mr.
Cyril Maude, and Mr. Sydney Brough resumed their
original parts, Mr. C. W. Garthorne replaced Mr.
Edmund Maurice as the Tom-and-Jerry buck Sir
Richard Cursitor, and Miss Kate Phillips took Miss
Rose Leclercq's part of Mrs. Fretwell. The third
act, an exceptionally brilliant piece of theatrical
writing, was received, as it always is, with thunders
of applause.
XIII.
" THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH."
2oth March.
THE St. James's Gazette, in an article headed " The
Notorious Mr. Redford,"* argues that because Mr.
Pinero's new play at the Garrick has been licensed,
the Censorship is not practically repressive to dramatic
literature. Ingenuous St. James's! Does it really
* The appointment of Mr. George Redford, a gentleman in
the employ of the London and South Western Bank, to the
office of Examiner of Plays, was announced immediately after
the production of 7'he Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith.
76 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
imagine that if The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith* had
been the work of an unknown writer, or, indeed, of
any one but Mr. Pinero, it would have been licensed ?
Not a bit of it. This admirable work, which even
Mr. Clement Scott hails as " a tragedy which brings
out in authorship and acting the very best that we
have got in English art," would have been consigned
to the limbo of still-born improprieties. As it is, we
all know that Mrs. Ebbsmith escaped the veto by the
skin of her " pretty white teeth." I speak simply
from common report. I have no private information
on the point, from Mr. Pinero or any one else. If I
asked Mr. Pinero for the " true truth " of the matter,
he would probably have to place me under a promise
of secrecy; for it is one of the pleasing traditions of
Stable Yard, St. James's, to consider as " confiden-
tial" any communication it deigns to hold with its
victims, and to put on airs of injury if its sayings or
doings are allowed to leak out. I prefer, then, not
to go to headquarters for information, but simply to
challenge the Vehmgericht to deny that The Notorious
Mrs. Ebbsmith was within an ace of being consigned
to one of its oubliettes. Frankly, I could find it in
my heart to wish that it had been. The time is
pretty nearly ripe for the revolt that must come
* March 13 May II. On May 15, Miss Olga Nethersole
succeeded Mrs. Patrick Campbell in the title-part, and the run
was continued until June 14. See p. 161.
"THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH." 77
sooner or later the storming of the secret, silent
Bastille. But prudence eventually prevailed in Stable
Yard, and the fight is postponed till further notice.
The new play is in all essentials a great advance on
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. Those critics who take
the opposite view are in reality hankering after the
more commonplace and melodramatic elements in
the earlier play. In it we had character precipitated
by external coincidence; here we have character
working itself out entirely from within. Moreover,
Mr. Pinero has here chosen a much more vital theme.
Most of us can afford to take a very abstract interest
in the theory of marriage with a demirep. We know
in advance that it is a hazardous experiment that
the county people won't call, while the lady's former
associates probably will. Thus The Second Mrs.
Tanqueray is really little more than the portrait of
Paula a brilliant piece of work, but isolated, almost
irrelevant. In The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, on the
other hand, Mr. Pinero goes straight for the univer-
sally relevant theme of marriage in general, and draws
three characters in place of one. It is unfair to
complain that his treatment of the theme is incon-
clusive. If it had been " conclusive," on one side or
other, those who dissented would have dubbed Mr.
Pinero a " faddist " and complained of being preached
at. What he has conclusively shown is that, as
society is at present constituted, it takes exceptional
78 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
characters on both sides to make a free union any
more successful than a marriage. This is not a very
difficult point to provej but as a contribution to the
philosophy of the subject, it is at least as valid as Mr.
Grant Allen's contention that two people of perfect
character may form an ideal union " without benefit
of clergy," especially if one of the parties will have
the good taste to die of typhoid before time has
tested the strength of the bond.
The design of the play, then, is above reproach.
It is technically by far the strongest thing our modern
stage has to show. An expository character or two
might perhaps be dispensed with, and an over-nicety
of explanation as to the comings and goings of the
personages might possibly have been avoided; but
these are the veriest trivialities. The main fact is
that we have, a drama consisting simply in the inter-
action of two characters, developing itself through
four acts, without situations, revelations, starts, sur-
prises, or picture-poster attractions of any sort, yet
from first to last enthralling the attention and stimu-
lating the intelligence. Stimulating, I say, not always
satisfying; for when we come to look into the
characters, we cannot but doubt whether Mr. Pinero
has quite achieved what he seems to have intended.
Lucas Cleeve is admirable the man of facile
enthusiasms and discouragements, "possessing ambi-
tion without patience, self-esteem without confidence "
"THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH." 79
but Agnes Ebbsmith, however vividly and ably
projected, can scarcely pass muster as a well-observed
type. Mr. Pinero has not entered with sympathetic
clairvoyance into the mental history and habit he
has not even mastered the vocabulary, the jargon,
if you will of the class of woman he sets out to
portray. I suspect him of holding "views" as to
feminine human nature in general; and "views," like
knotty window-panes, are fatal to observation. In
this he is by no means a4one. Nine-tenths of mascu-
line woman-drawing is vitiated by " views " and, in
these latter days, about nineteen-twentieths of feminine
woman-drawing. You may think it a reckless para-
dox, but Ibsen seems to me one of the few modern
writers whose studies of feminine character are un-
distorted by "views." He does not go to work
syllogistically, saying to himself, " All women are this,
that, and the other thing; my heroine is a woman;
therefore she is this, that, and the other thing." He
looks straight at and through women, and draws them
in their infinite variety. Time was when he, too,
held views, and then he drew his Agnes, and other
characters of that order. They were beautiful in
their time, but he has gone far beyond them. Ten
years hence we may perhaps be saying the same of
Mr. Pinero's Agnes.
She is the daughter, so she says, of a revolutionary
Socialist, atheist, and all the rest of it; yet her whole
80 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
habit of mind is that of one who has been steeped
from the outset in orthodoxy, and has embraced
heterodoxy in fear and trembling, with a sense of
strangeness and adventure. " In spite of father's
unbelief and mother's indifference," she says, " I was
in my heart as devout as any girl in a parsonage.
. . . Whenever I could escape from our stifling rooms
at home, the air blew away uncertainty and scepticism."
We are told of no external influence that made her
regard her father's ideas as "strange," and think of
his paganism as " scepticism." Mr. Pinero seems to
assume " devoutness " as a sort of universal instinct
of the childish, or at any rate of the woman-childish,
heart, and to conceive that this instinct alone would
prevent the ideas of a much-loved father from " soak-
ing into " his daughter. Now, as a matter of fact (I
don't think Mr. Diggle himself would deny this),
your ordinary child is instinctively an out-and-out
pagan. The childish criticism of the universe is
remorselessly rationalistic. It is religion, not irre-
ligion, that a child requires to be taught. The father's
agnosticism might not soak very deep into the
child, and might be effectually counteracted by some
other and more positive influence; but we hear of
nothing of the sort. It is even possible that, by
some freak of atavism, like that which makes the
daughter of Mr. Grant Allen's Woman who Did an
incurable little snob and numskull, the atheist father
"THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH." Si
and indifferent mother might produce a daughter
with a constitutional bent towards mysticism, an innate
genius for piety. But that is not Agnes's case. For
fourteen years of her mature life she has been a
pagan; for six of them she has been an active propa-
gandist ; she conceives herself to be still a pagan at
the very moment when, by talking of " uncertainty
and scepticism," " hope and faith," she shows that
she regards religious belief as the normal and funda-
mental attitude of the human mind. Now, whether
this be so or not, it is certainly the last thing that a
woman like Agnes would admit or assume. Her
spiritual history doe's not hang together. It is not
probably constructed or possibly expressed. Mr.
Pinero has failed to put himself in the position of
what may be called a congenital pagan a woman
who from childhood has taken in rationalism at the
pores of her skin, as most children take in Chris-
tianity. Yet that, for aught we can see or reasonably
conjecture, is precisely Agnes's case. It seems to be
Mr. Pinero's belief that "every woman is at heart a"
saint. The Bible incident, I take it, at the end of
the third act, symbolises his " view " that no woman
is strong enough to go through life without some
supernatural refuge to fly to in time of need; so that,
even if she thinks she has cast her "hope and faith"
into the fire, she will presently pluck them out again,
though she sear her flesh in the attempt. Well,
82 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
there are instances that favour that view, and I think
there are instances against it. But though we may
cite women who preach atheism to-day, and go to
confession or to Thibet to-morrow, while they are
secularists they stand at, and speak from, the secu-
larist's point of view. Agnes Ebbsmith, on the other
hand, even in expounding her heterodoxy, uncon-
sciously adopts the standpoint and uses the language
of orthodoxy.
Equally unrealised are her sociological doctrines.
John Thorold, for instance, must have been a very
strange Socialist if his daughter ever heard him talking
about "division of wealth, and the rest of it." That
is the language of the gentleman who writes to the
Times to point out that, if all property were equally
divided to-day, there would be rich men and poor
men to-morrow, millionaires and paupers the day
after. This Socialist daughter of a Socialist does not.
know the phraseology of her party. Again, her
objections to marriage are curiously shall I say
empirical? Because her father and mother and
" most of our married friends " lived a cat-and-dog
life, and because her own husband was a brute, she
sets forth to preach Free Union as the panacea for a
cantankerous world. It does not seem to enter her
head that there are drawbacks to marriage even
between people of reasonably good tempers, good
hearts, and good manners. Of the economic, ethical,
"THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH." 83
and sentimental commonplaces of attack upon mar-
riage, which a woman in her position would be
bound to have at her fingers' ends, she appears to
know nothing. It is especially noteworthy that she
ignores the question of children, as affecting the rela-
tion of the sexes. The world of her speculations is
a childless world. A triangle, in her trigonometry,
consists of two straight lines. Her struggle, too,
against what she calls " passion," seems to me to
show a misconception on Mr. Pinero's part of the
type of woman with whom he is dealing or rather
a confusion of two distinct types. He thinks vaguely
of rebellion against the primary conditions of sex as
a general characteristic of the "new" or advanced
woman. Now there are or rather there have been,
for the type is surely " going out " women constitu-
tionally inaccessible to passion, who resent it as a
degrading servitude, and would fain make their indi-
vidual limitation a law, or an ideal, for their fellow-
women. But such women would be the last to enter
on a free union. Married they may be they may
have taken on the yoke before they realised their
own temperament, or they may have condescended
to marriage for the sake of its social and economic
advantages. But love, in the largest sense of the
word, is as incomprehensible to them as passion.
They do not want even the friendship or close com-
panionship of a man. Their instinct is to make their
84 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
own sex as nearly as possible self-sufficing. Why,
then, should they incur all sorts of social disadvan-
tages for the sake of a companionship which they do
not require or desire? And, in any case, Agnes is
clearly not a creature of this brood. She is not
naturally a passionless woman. She loves Lucas, in
the fullest sense of the word, with a love that survives
even her fuller insight into his character. Her
aspiration towards a " colder, more temperate, more
impassive companionship," is a merely intellectual
vagary, and I venture to think that it springs from
a misconception on Mr. Pinero's part. Newspaper
moralists have so persistently prefixed the stereotypes
" sexless " and " unsexed " to the " new woman " that
he has been betrayed into grafting an inconsistent
attribute upon his heroine's character. The real, or,
at any rate, the characteristic, " new woman " accepts
with something more than equanimity the destinies
of her sex, and would certainly not ignore the possi-
bility of motherhood in her rearrangement of the
scheme of things. One could understand Agnes's
position if her previous experience of marriage had
given her such a horror of "passion" that she had
resolved from the very outset to maintain her com-
panionship with Lucas on a supersexual basis. But
we are told in so many words that this is not the
case. Her rebellion against passion is an after-
thought, and surely an improbable one. It might
" THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH." 85
pass as a whim of the moment, but such a whim
should be the subject of a comedietta, not of a
serious play.
Perhaps you think that, if these criticisms are
justified, there is very little of Agnes left. But when
you see the play you will discover that they are more
verbal than essential that in order to obviate them
only a few changes of phraseology would be required,
the main lines of the action, the fundamental pro-
cesses of emotion, remaining unaltered. I, for my
part, flatly dissent from that " view " of Mr. Pinero's,
to which we owe the Bible incident and the pietistic
end; but, after all, he has a perfect right to hold and
illustrate this view. For the rest, The Notorious Mrs.
Ebbsmith seems to me the work of a born and highly
accomplished dramatist, who goes right essentially
and by instinct, and wrong superficially, for lack of
special knowledge. It should be quite possible to
tell Agnes's story, up to the moment when she thrusts
her hand into the fire, without altering a single inci-
dent or emotion, yet in such a way as to obviate all
the above objections, which are founded upon phrases
rather than facts. But here I must break off a dis-
cussion which has already exceeded all bounds. I
hope to resume it in another article, and to say some-
thing of the acting.'
86 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
XIV.
"MRS. EBBSMITH" AGAIN "A LOVING LEGACY "-
"SALVE" "THE BLUE BOAR."
27/7* March.
AFTER pointing out, last week, what seem to me
certain errors of observation in the character of Agnes
Ebbsmith, I stated my belief that these errors are
verbal rather than essential. It should be possible, I
said, to tell Agnes's story, at any rate up to the end of
the third act, without altering any incident or emotion,
yet in such a way as to obviate all my criticisms.
Let me now make the attempt; repeating, however,
that my what shall I call it ? my exposition stops
short at the Bible incident. To account for that,
it would be necessary to introduce a new element
into Agnes's previous history ; and that is against the
rules of the game.
Well then she is the daughter of a Socialist orator,
has imbibed her father's religious and political ideas,
and has seen, in her home life, the miseries of an
ill-assorted marriage. Nevertheless, she marries early,
to find herself her husband's sultana for one year and
his servant for seven at the end of which period
he dies. Confirmed, by her personal ill-hap, in her
allegiance to her father's ideas, she becomes an active
" MRS. EBBSMITH " AGAIN. 8/
propagandist of social democracy and female emanci-
pation ; but losing her voice and being in the pinch
of poverty, she takes to nursing as a means of liveli-
hood, and in the course of her duties comes across
Lucas Cleeve. All this is probable enough, and all
this is precisely what Agnes relates of herself. It is
not in the facts, but in her wording of them that the
improbability comes in. She speaks of both free-
thought and socialism, not as one to the manner born,
but rather as one not yet acclimatised, and ignorant
of technicalities and shibboleths. Lucas Cleeve (to
return to the story) is in the hot fit of rebellion
against marriage with a hard-natured worldly woman
who despises him instead of bringing him the
sympathy and appreciation for which his weak egoism
craves. These qualities, together with a tender un-
worldliness, he finds in Agnes. Illness and distance
make his old life and its ambitions and interests
seem infinitely aloof from him, and he is quite ready
to be infected by the enthusiasms of this stately
creature, the antithesis in every respect of the wife
who has wounded him. He loves in her a " minister-
ing angel," and she a convert in him. So they cast
in their lots together, and we find them in Venice.
But now, as Lucas regains strength, and as the
decisive moment approaches when he must break
once for all with his traditions and his career, the habits
of his caste reassert themselves, and he finds his
88 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
enthusiasm for free union in the abstract, and for
social democracy in the concrete, rapidly cooling.
He still loves Agnes, but not as she longs to be loved.
He loves her in spite of, not in and for, her ideas.
She gradually comes to feel that her aspirations
towards "plain living and high thinking," towards
labour, and if need be martyrdom, for social emanci-
pation and justice, are in his eyes little better than
eccentricities of which she must be gradually cured.
He would have her put on the gowns and the
prejudices of his caste. She sees, with deep humilia-
tion, that she holds him by his senses, not by his
intellect; that they are not fellow- workers in a great
cause, not shining examples of a high ideal, but are
simply living in vulgar vice, a rich young profligate
and his mistress. On realising this, she tries to save
her self-respect by raising their companionship to
a purely intellectual and supersexual plane; so that
even this recrudescence of the innate puritanism of
the English middle-classes becomes comprehensible
enough if we take it, not as a general characteristic of
the type of woman Mr. Pinero is portraying, but
as resulting from the special circumstances of Agnes's
case. At this juncture the Duke of St. Olpherts
comes on the scene, a living embodiment of all those
forces in Lucas's nature against which Agnes is
carrying on a despairing battle. She knows that
what seemed eccentric in Lucas's own eyes will
" MRS. EBBSMITH " AGAIN. 89
appear grotesque and hateful when seen in the con-
cave mirror of the Duke's scepticism. She seeks an
encounter with the Duke so as to know and measure
her adversary. To say that such a woman would not
"Trafalgar Square" him in her own drawing-room is
absurd. There is a great deal of human nature even
in collectivists, and it would be a foolish affecta-
tion on her part to treat the Duke as though they met
on the neutral territory of ordinary social intercourse.
The verbal form of her " Trafalgar Squaring " may
be open to criticism; the fact is natural and even
inevitable. Having gauged the Duke's strength, she
sees that she must either give up the battle or fight
him with his own weapons. To give it up would be
not only to lose a convert and shatter a still fascinat-
ing dream, but to submit to the soiling of her life
with a futile and degrading episode. It is tolerable,
it may even be piquant, not to be a man's first love;
it is intolerably humiliating not to be his last. So she
determines to fight the Duke the World, the Flesh,
and the Devil incarnate with his own weapons.
She has wit and beauty; she will use them ! She
puts off the " dowdy demagogue " and puts on the
bewitching woman ; and hey presto ! Faust is at her
feet again and Mephistopheles is apparently routed.
And now, to her own surprise, she finds herself, for
a moment, thrilling with the joy of triumph and of
surrender. " Her sex has found her out " ; she knows
go THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
that it is no longer the convert she loves in Lucas, but
the man; and beneath her sense of treachery to her
ideals, she is conscious of a tremulous delight. t
was in this phase of the character that Mrs. Patrick
Campbell's otherwise brilliant performance seemed to
me to fall a little short. It may be that I am refining
too much upon Mr. Pinero's conception, but I can cer-
tainly see nothing ^consistent with a reading more
subtle and at the same time more human than Mrs.
Campbell's. The actress seemed to feel only the irony
in Agnes's thoughts, not the genuine underlying joy.
There was nothing but bitterness in her realisation
that her " woman's one hour " had come ; and that I
cannot take to have been the author's meaning. It is
true that Agnes had expected her hour to come in a
very different shape; but her sentiment on finding
that it has taken her by surprise is surely not one of
mere disgust and discontent. Mrs Campbell seemed
to me to ignore in effect, as she certainly delivered
without conviction, that outburst of Agnes's in answer
to the Duke's wish that Lucas were " a different sort
of feller" "Nothing matters now not even that.
He's mine. He would have died but for me. I
gave him life. He is my child, my husband, my
lover, my bread, my daylight all everything. Mine.
Mine." Beautiful and fascinating as Mrs. Campbell
undoubtedly was throughout, I could not but find a
certain superficiality, hardness, almost shrewishness,
"MRS. EBBSMITH" AGAIN. 91
in her treatment of the third act. Agnes's " hour,"
at any rate, is a very brief one. Lucas has not sense
enough to realise her sacrifice. Finding her, as he
thinks, " gowned " and in her right mind, he must
needs take the opportunity to insult and exult over
the ideals and aspirations which were to have been
the bond of union between them ; and she sees that
at best she has to face a second cycle of passion and
satiety, like that of her first marriage. Then, putting
him to the test with death in her heart, she finds him
prepared for, and even hankering after, a squalid
compromise, in which she, instead of making her life
a proud and open protest against the slavery of
marriage, is to join the furtive horde of mercenary
irregulars who smooth the way for the triumphant
march of the hymeneal legion. At this her soul
revolts; and leaving behind her the four words,
" My hour is over," she departs from the palace of
her day-dream, which has become in her eyes a house
of shame.
Have I kept my promise ? Frankly, I think so.
I have told the story of a very true, very subtle, and
very tragic play, a play which none but a master
dramatist could have invented and composed; and it
is simply Mr. Pinero's play up to the last five minutes
of the third act, with nothing added, and nothing
essential left out. It is the play you can see every
night at the Garrick Theatre, somewhat, but very
92 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
slightly, obscured by a few unrealised phrases placed
in Agnes's mouth. Mr. Pinero, I take it, is much in
the position of (say) a clergyman of great ability,
insight, and literary power, who should undertake to
write a novel of stage-life, having an actress for its
heroine, with no more intimate knowledge of the
stage, and its ways of thought and speech, than may be
gained from a few casual visits to the Lyceum stalls.
He might quite well draw a very true and fascinating
woman, though an unconvincing actress ; and Agnes,
in the same way, is a very true and fascinating woman',
though an unconvincing Socialist and Secularist. I
wish the play ended, as it might very well, at the
point where my narrative leaves off. It is at this
point that Mr. Pinero's preconceived " view " of femi-
nine character intervenes, to my thinking, rather
disastrously. I see no reason why Agnes should
throw the Bible into the fire, no reason why she
should pluck it out again. That seems to me the
culmination ot another play, another character-study.
As for the great scene of the last act the scene
between Agnes and Sybil Cleeve it is a daring and
scathing piece of satire, but somewhat of a superfluity
none the less. Agnes's acquiescence in Sybil's pro-
posal simply takes my breath away. I can trace it only
to a queer survival of the heroic-self-sacrifice super-
stition which inspired so many of the French senti-
mental dramas of twenty years ago. One might
" MRS. EBBSMITIi " AGAIN. 93
almost say of it, as Dr. Johnson said of the Beggar's
Opera; "There is in it such a labefaction of all
principles as may be injurious to morality."
Of Mrs. Patrick Campbell's performance I have
already spoken. Mr. Hare's Duke of St. Olpherts is
one of his most masterly studies. It has gained in
firmness and precision since the first night, and is
now a perfect impersonation. Both on the first night
and when I saw the play again, Mr. Forbes Robertson
seemed to me a little too much bent on showing that
he saw through Lucas Cleeve. He "gave him away"
too frankly, especially in the third act. I could
imagine a more plausible rendering of the character,
but scarcely one that would be more effective from
the point of view of the average audience.
And now, in conclusion, a word in Mr. Pinero's
ear. He has written two profoundly interesting and
admirable plays plays which deserve to take rank
with the best French and German work of the day
plays which those only can despise who make a virtue
of despising the theatre as a whole. We are very
grateful to him for what he has done, though he may
perhaps think that some of us are tolerably successful
in dissembling our gratitude. But when we put The
Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith beside The Second Mrs.
Tanqueray, and try to generalise their characteristics,
the first that strikes us is a certain depressing nega-
tiveness I had almost said aridity. They are studies
94 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
in failure the failure of marriage, the failure of love,
the failure of high idealisms, the failure of good
intentions with no glimpse of compensation, no
loophole for hope, no message, no stimulus, no sus-
tenance. They do not even " purge the heart with
pity and terror." They leave us dry-eyed and fevered
rather than moved and heart -stricken. In a word,
they put us on a distinctly "lowering" spiritual
regimen. Mr. Pinero, I am sure, will not suspect
me of clamouring for "comic," or even sentimental,
" relief." I am not clamouring for anything or com-
plaining of anything. Only I should be sorry if Mr.
Pinero suffered this purely negative outlook upon the
world to become habitual. I plead for a little more
atmosphere in his work, and a more inspiring tone of
thought. I am the last to make pessimism an artistic
crime ; but when pessimism becomes mannerism, it is
certainly an artistic weakness.
Let me now briefly record a few productions which
have been " elbowed aside by the imperious Mrs.
Ebbsmith. Miss Hope Booth's second attempt to
conquer the British public at the Royalty Theatre,
with a variety play entitled That Terrible Girl* was
even more feebly deplorable than the first, and might
well be passed over in silence were it not that Mr.
George Giddens's really clever performance of a
German innkeeper deserves a word of mention. In
* March 9 March 22.
" A LOVING LEGACY." 95
A Loving Legacy,* by Mr. Fred W. Sidney, at the
Strand, the somewhat scabrous subject of Mario
Uchard's Mon Onde Barbassou is treated without
unnecessary indelicacy, but also with no unnecessary
outlay of wit and invention. There was one scene in
the second act which threw the audience into convul-
sions of laughter a silent scene, in which three
Englishmen put on Turkish attire and the rough
humour of some other situations seemed to give a
good deal of pleasure. The acting called for no par-
ticular remark. The programme presented by the
Independent Theatre at the Opera Comiquef was of a
somewhat trivial character. A Man's Love, adapted
from the Dutch of J. C. de Vos, seemed rather
daring, I remember, when it was first produced; but
its simplicity of action is not enough to compensate
for its unsophisticated dialogue and its antiquated
technical devices. Salve, by Mrs. Oscar Beringer,
struck me, I am sorry to say, as the most gratuitously
and intolerably painful play I ever witnessed an
unexplained, unmotived horror. Knowing what was
to be the catastrophe, I kept on thinking at every
speech, "Now surely we are going to have some
preparation for what is coming ! " But no ; not a
word, not a hint, was vouchsafed us. The mildest,
* March 12 April 10. Transferred to Opera Comique,
April 15 April 20.
t March 15 (evening) and March 16 (afternoon).
96 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
sweetest, sanest of women suddenly took up the
bread-knife at her own table and stuck it into her
unoffending guest and that was all ! There is no
art in this, any more than in writing a line with black
ink, and then opening the other ink-bottle and
dabbing a blot of red on the paper. The piece was
well played by Mr. Haviland, Mr. Matthew Brodie,
and Mrs. Theodore Wright. The Blue Boar* by
Messrs. Louis N. Parker and Thornton Clark, pro-
duced on Saturday night at Terry's Theatre, contains
some amusing episodes and some clever writing, but
is too trivial in idea and attenuated in humour to be
really worthy of the authors of Gudgeons. It affords
a "good part" for Mr. Terry, however, and very
poor parts for Miss Fanny Brough and Miss Alexes
Leighton ; and it gives Mr. Harcourt Beatty an
opportunity to prove himself a capable comedian.
XV.
THEATRE AND MUSIC-HALL.
Pall Mall Budget, 2%th March.
WITH fear and trembling I approach a dangerous
topic. It is true that, as a notorious and incorrigible
devotee of that effete institution, the theatre, I have
* March 23 April 20.
THEATRE AND MUSIC-HALL. 97
rather less than no character to lose ; but my deplor-
able " habit and repute " will scarcely save me from
the chastisement due to my temerity in calling in
question the supremacy of the music-hall in the world
of art. For such is my audacious intent. Not that
I impugn the taste of those who prefer the music-
hall to the theatre ; I merely wish to inquire why, in
a world where tastes proverbially differ, this preference
should pass for the mark of a high, enlightened, and
truly modern soul, while the contrary preference
stigmatises any one who confesses to it as a person
quite beyond the pale of culture. Don't tell me,
dear reader, that you are not aware of this fact.
Your ignorance merely shows that you are a besotted
playgoer, without even the grace to be conscious of
the abject inferiority of your tastes. I shouldn't
wonder, now, if you think Mr. Irving, with all his
faults and limitations, an abler man and a finer
artist than Mr. Charles Coborn? Possibly you even
go the length of preferring Mr. Hare to Mr. Herbert
Campbell, and Miss Winifred Emery to Miss Bessie
Bellwood ? My dear sir, you are simply in outer
darkness. So dense a lack of perception is unthink-
able, or at least unmentionable, nowadays. People
conceal such preferences as they would a deformity
or a vice. Is it possible you don't know that the
theatre is dead, quite dead, this many a year, and
stinketh in the nostrils of the truly refined and
7
98 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Aesthetic; while art, real high-toned, all-alive, up-to-
date Art, has taken up its abode in the Syndicate
Halls? Perhaps you don't even know what are
the Syndicate Halls ? " Garn ! " as the great artists
say.
It was Mr. George Moore, I remember, who years
ago broke to me, in conversation, the intelligence
that the theatre was hopelessly played out, and that
living art was to be found in the music-hall alone.
In my light-hearted way, I laughed ; I thought it was
only his fun. But it was not long before I realised
the gravity of the communication. Every week has
added to the cloud of witnesses on Mr. Moore's side;
every month has increased their confidence, one
might almost say their truculence. The theatre !
Pah ! 'tis not to be named with patience ! Events
which some of us mistook for signs of life, such as
the production of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The
Case of Rebellious Susan, or Becket, were merely
nauseous symptoms of decomposition. To take the
slightest pleasure or admit the faintest interest in
these things was simply to write yourself down
illiterate, if not imbecile. On the other hand, a new
"turn "at the Empire or the Pavilion, Miss Marie
Lloyd's or Mr. Dan Leno's latest song, a novel kick
or wriggle by some short-skirted chanteuse excentrique^
became matters of national moment, to be gravely
chronicled and learnedly discussed. The music-
THEATRE AND MUSIC-HALL. 99
hall critic is now quite as indispensable to any
self-respecting paper as the musical or dramatic
critic, and is indeed a vastly superior person.
The average dramatic critic is of very common
journalistic clay, and is apt to live a humdrum
suburban and domestic life. Your typical music-hall
chronicler is a young blood more or less fresh from
the University, who probably has chambers in
Piccadilly.
Pray do not imagine that I am out of sympathy
with the habit of mind which finds entertainment in
the garish patch-work of the Palace of Varieties, and
cannot endure the restraint and comparative monotony
of all theatrical performances, the long-drawn preten-
tiousness and ineptitude of some. I myself am
frequently conscious of a music-hall mood, when I
would much rather see a few turns at the Tivoli or
Royal than sit out a dull drama or duller farce. This
mood is not difficult of analysis, and one can easily
understand that in some people, even of education
and intelligence, it should become chronic. It is not
the " music-hall habit " that I am criticising, but the
fashion of elevating that habit into a virtue, and
reinforcing it with an exaggerated and aggressive
contempt for the stage. One gets a little tired, in the
long run, of the cant yes, I repeat it, the cant
about art in the music-halls. The "art" of the
music-halls is like the " science " of pugilism a mere
100 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 189$.
figure of speech. There are scores of " clever people "
on the music-hall stage, and some are much cleverer
than others. But at the very best their cleverness is
restricted, monotonous, and trivial, if not ignoble.
Talk of the mannerisms of actors ! The music-hall
"artiste" is an incarnate mannerism. His or her
success lies in working-up to their highest potency
a few tricks and mannerisms of vocalisation and
expression, till their sheer grotesqueness becomes
magnetic. When once these tricks are fully de-
veloped, the " art " of the " artiste " is like that of the
organette, into which you insert, from time to time,
a fresh strip of perforated paper, and then turn the
handle.
To me, I own, by far the most satisfactory por-
tion of the average variety-show is the tumbling,
juggling, and wire-dancing, the feats of acrobats and
of performing animals. These are always curious,
often marvellous, sometimes very beautiful. Then
there are a few vocalists whose diction and whose
rhythmic sense do really bring them within the sphere
of art. They possess a very limited power, too often
applied to very despicable ends ; but being able to do
well certain things which are not in themselves un-
beautiful, they may in so far claim to rank not only
as " artistes " but artists. For the rest, the art of the
music-hall is the art of elaborate ugliness, blatant
vulgarity, alcoholic humour, and rancid sentiment.
THEATRE AND MUSIC-HALL. IOI
It does not really mirror or interpret any side of life
whatever. It exhibits the life of the rich as one long
rowdy swagger, the life of the poor as a larky, beery,
maudlin Bank Holiday. Oh, the appalling monotony
of the topics treated by the music-hall poet! Oh,
the narrowness of his vision, the insincerity of his
pathos, his patriotism, his morality, even his im-
morality ! It is a significant, not to say a terrible,
fact that of the 50,000 songs (at a low estimate) which
must have been written for the variety-shows during
the half-century of their existence, not one song, not
one verse, not one line, has passed into the common
stock of the language ; or, if any exceptions can be
cited, they are of American, not British, origin. This
whole literature has vanished " into the Ewigkeit,"
leaving behind it a few isolated scraps of slang,
probably not invented by the lyrists themselves, but
fixed in the popular memory by the momentary vogue
of the songs in which they occurred. Such, for
instance, is the term "Jingo." The music-halls have
produced no rhymer of the calibre of Mr. Gilbert or
Mr. " Adrian Ross," much less a poet comparable to
Burns or Beranger. They have given us no humorist
like John Parry or the late Mr. Corney Grain. They
have impressed no permanent character-type, like Mrs.
Gamp, or Mulvaney, or even "Ally Sloper," on the
popular imagination. Was there ever in the world
such a gigantic mass of effort, in the direction of
IO2 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
literature and art, so hopelessly ephemeral and
negligible in its results ?
The curious thing is that the educated fanatics of
the variety-show admit all this readily enough,' when
you catch them singly. They have a hearty contempt
for the greater part of the music-hall entertainment ;
indeed, they resort to the variety-shows for the very
purpose of luxuriating in that emotion. It is precisely
the vulgarity and inanity of the " comedians " and
" serio-comics " and " song-and-dance artistes" that
attracts them to these halls of dazzling light. Now, I
am far from condemning or scoffing at this attitude of
mind. It is perfectly natural and perfectly legitimate.
The vulgarity of other people, besides being often
amusing in itself, ministers to our sense of superiority.
At the music-hall we can be both vulgar and refined
at the same moment. We can enjoy what is low and
despicable with an added zest of condescension.
Which of us is not conscious, now and then, of this
nostalgic de la boue ? Some are a little ashamed of it,
others are not; with some it is intermittent, with
others chronic. Personally, I have no more objection
to it than to any other of the lower human instincts
only I fail to see that it constitutes either a moral
virtue or an intellectual distinction. Nor can I see
why performances which are individually more or less
despicable should become admirable artistic achieve-
ments when regarded in bulk. The zealots of the
THEATRE AND MUSIC-HALL. 1 03
music-hall ought at least to apply the same principle
to the stage, and, while contemning, from their exalted
standpoint, individual authors and actors, ought to
regard the theatre in general as the nursery of a
great and vital art.
The truth is, that we have all, play-lovers and
" turn "-lovers alike, an irresistible tendency to make
our tastes flatter our vanity. "We needs must love
the highest when we see it ; " and it follows (does it
not ?) that what we happen to love must be, by the
eternal laws of the universe, the thing best worth
loving. I am far from contending that we theatre-
lovers are absolutely right and the fanatics of the
variety-show absolutely wrong. Analyse their procli-
vity and you find it quite rational and comprehensible
more so, perhaps, than our mania for the theatre.
All I suggest is, that they might live and let live,
recognising that it is not a love of "art," in any
rational sense of the term, but simply a love of physical
comfort and mental idleness, that draws them to the
music-hall. There is far more "art" a far more
highly-skilled and intelligent adaptation of means to
an end in acting of ordinary competence than in the
cleverest performances the English music-hall stage
can show.
IO4 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
XVI.
"L'CEUVRE."
yd April.
IT was not without misgiving shall I confess it?
that I looked forward to the performances of the
"Theatre de 1'CEuvre" at the Opera Comique.*
Ibsen's tears did not inspire me with confidence.
Tears are, after all, an ambiguous tribute from an
author to his interpreters. It seemed to me quite
possible that Ibsen might reverse the verbs in Byron's
famous Byronism, saying:
' ' And if I weep at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not laugh."
Besides, Ibsen was in such a case obviously the one
critic from whom sincerity could not possibly be
expected; so that even a tear-stained eulogy under
his own hand and seal would scarcely have convinced
me. Some Danish criticisms of the company which
I had seen were unemotional to the point of frigidity;
and being under the prevailing delusion that the
performers were mainly amateurs In brief, I
had my misgivings. The first act of Rosmersholm
was sufficient to dissipate them. Not that I would
* Eight performances in all : March 25 and 28, Rosmers-
holm and L'Intnise ; March 26 and 29, Pelleas et Mt'lisande ;
March 27 and 30, Solness le Constructeur. Matinees : March
27, Rosmersholm and L ' Intrnse ; March 30, Solness.
"L'CEUVRE." 105
use this confession of scepticism as a spring-board
from which to leap to the heights of panegyric. I
cannot precisely mingle my tears with Ibsen's, but I
can quite understand that it must have given him
real pleasure to see his creations thus enthusiastically
studied and intelligently interpreted by artists, not
only of another nationality, but of alien and almost
antagonistic race and temperament. The perform-
ances of JKosmersholm and The Master Builder were
altogether competent and sympathetic, full of ex-
cellent intentions, and not without moments of highly
successful realisation. They did not, I own, take
hold of me very deeply. They interested, and often
satisfied, my critical faculties; they did not stir my
emotions or, if they did, it was indirectly, through
the reminiscences they aroused. The action never
gripped me and carried me away, as the most familiar
play of Ibsen's scarcely ever fails to do. This was
mainly, I believe, because of the language. Count
Prozor's translations seemed to me very correct, and
not infelicitous, except in a few passages of The
Master Builder, that most difficult of all Ibsen's
plays, which had proved even more intractable in
French than in English. It was not, then, on the
whole, that I felt the translations inadequate: it was
simply that, with the familiar rhythms, whether of the
English or the Norwegian, I felt that some of the
spirit had departed. Other people, I find, were
106 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
differently affected. In listening to Ibsen's dialogue
in French they escaped that sense of strangeness
which was apt to disturb them in English perform-
ances. This was quite natural: strange things sound
less strange in a strange language. But to me
the things themselves were not strange at all; it
was only the new language that brought with it
incongruous associations. My mind was perpetually
occupied in searching for the Teutonic equivalents,
English or Norwegian, of the Latin phrases that fell
upon my ear; consequently I could not quite yield
myself up to the spell of the poet's invention. This
was no fault, of course, either of the translator or of
the actors; I am merely explaining why I cannot
write of the performances with the enthusiasm which
springs from spontaneous, irresistible enjoyment.
Defects of mounting, too, could not but jar here and
there, and, still more, defects of stage-management.
It cannot be sufficiently impressed on every one who
has to do with the staging of Ibsen's plays, that every
departure from his minute and careful instructions is
a departure for the worse. I have learned this by
repeated experience. Ibsen knows the stage at
any rate, his own stage as no one else does, and
actors who cannot follow out his directions condemn
their own art. In Rosmersholm especially the French
actors, to my great surprise, carried to excess that
tendency to "break up the scenes" by irrelevant
" L'GEUVRE." 107
wanderings about the stage which one has so often
had to struggle against in English rehearsals. Finally,
to complete the list of drawbacks to my perfect
appreciation of the performances, it so happened that
Rosmersholm and The Master Builder were precisely
the plays in which, to my thinking, the essentially
poetic talent of Miss Elizabeth Robins had achieved
its finest successes. Mile. Mellot as Rebecca, and
Mile. Despres as Hilda, were heavily handicapped
in having to contend against reminiscences of Miss
Robins's subtly imaginative rendering of the one part,
her radiant creation of the other. Both actresses
showed ability and accomplishment. Mile. Mellot's
somewhat sultry beauty and commanding presence
were combined with an excellent dramatic method,
founded on, yet not slavishly copied from, that of
Sarah Bernhardt. The writers who could take this
lady for an amateur are curiously at the mercy of
their preconceptions. Her rendering of Rebecca
was straightforward, vigorous, intelligent. The out-
lines were all there; and this bold, firm sketch in
black and white has, it appears, thrown new light
upon the character in the eyes of some critics. I am
in the peculiar position of not requiring new light,
and looking rather for half-tints, complexities, and,
above all, an atmosphere of poetry. Mile. Despres
had many qualifications for the part of Hilda youth,
freshness, vivacity, and a perfect knowledge of the
IOS THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
stage. She was Hilda translated into everyday prose
the gamine Hilda of The Lady from the Sea rather
than the Valkyrie Hilda of The Master Builder.
M. Lugne-Poe, too, seemed to be at pains to prosaise
the part of Solness. There was an idea, and an
excellent idea, in his conception of the part: he
rightly sought to emphasise the imperious will, the
compulsive ' magnetism of the man; but why he
should have gone out of his way to make him so
ugly and common was more than I could understand.
At many points, in the first act especially, he bore a
grotesque resemblance to Got as M. Poirier. Since
these actors have visited Norway, they ought to have
unlearned their apparently fixed idea that a goatee
beard is the only wear in those latitudes, and that the
typical Norwegian is not to be distinguished from a
Vermont Yankee. M. Poe, moreover, picked out his
face with red in a way which suggested that the
Master Builder had been seeking Dutch courage for
his struggle with the younger generation. Neverthe-
less, the impersonation was a remarkable one, and
well worth study. Now and again, as the action
proceeded, I caught an echo of those "harps in the
air" which the poet has set thrilling through this
strange emotional symphony; but I could not help
feeling that the whole performance went far to excuse
M. Sarcey's inability to make head or tail of the play.
It was all too much on one level. I missed what
"L'CEUVRE." 109
may be called the due phrasing of the action the
rhythm of its emotional development was not suffi-
ciently accentuated. The performance .of Rosmers-
holm was much better in this respect; and here
M. Poe was fortunately not tempted to disguise the
remarkable beauty and distinction of his face and
bearing. He played the gentle, dreamy Rosmer very
ably and sympathetically.
The presentation of Maeterlinck's Pelleas et Meli-
sande was even more interesting, because more novel,
than the Ibsen experiments. (I pass over Ulntruse
frankly, it ought to have been better done, or not
at all.) M. Maeterlinck has invented, or at any rate
perfected (for he calls M. Charles Van Lerberghe his
master), a new and very beautiful method of dramatic
expression. Perhaps "expression " is scarcely the
word, for the peculiarity of the method is that
nothing is fairly and squarely expressed. Language
is in M. Maeterlinck's hands quite literally the veil
of thought and emotion, revealing through conceal-
ment; so that the film of gauze interposed, at the
Opera Comique, between the audience and the stage
had a symbolic as well as a picturesque value. Very
seldom, except in passages of impersonal moralising,
do his characters give direct utterance to what they
are thinking and feeling. Often, indeed, they could
not if they would, for they do not themselves realise
what is passing in their hearts. The poet's art lies in
IIO THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
so working on our imagination that, through their
seemingly irrelevant and sometimes even trivial
babble, we divine more than they could possibly
tell us if they " unpacked their heart with words."
We have all felt the charm of this method in reading
La Princesse Maleine, Pelleas et Melisande, and La
Mort de Tintagiles ; it remained to be seen whether
the charm would be enhanced or impaired by stage
presentation. That it is, or might be, enhanced, the
performance of Pelleas et Alelisande left no doubt.
The poet's exquisitely cadenced prose, recited, or
rather intoned, by Mile. Mellot as Pelleas, Mile.
Despres as Melisande, and M. Poe as Golaud, fell
like music on the ear; and the subdued passion, the
mysterious horror, of the more tragic scenes produced
a poignant effect. I am old-fashioned enough to see
no reason why the eye should not be gratified in
such a performance as well as the ear and the mind.
Dimness of atmosphere is all very well, but dinginess
seems unnecessary; and M. Poe's taste in costume
(for the dresses were of his own designing) appeared
to me fearful and wonderful. But it would be no
less unjust than ungrateful to quarrel with M. Poe
because of the scantiness of the material means at
his disposal. We owe to the Theatre de TCEuvre,
and indirectly to our own indomitable Independent
Theatre, a new artistic sensation.
P.S. I learn on good authority that to the later
THE MAETERLINCK WEEK. 1 1 I
performances of Solness k Constructeur many of the
above criticisms were no longer applicable. M. Poe,
for example, had modified his make-up, and dispensed
with the goatee and the lines of red about his face.
He acted, too, with more distinction and more
decision, being independent of the prompter, who
was distractingly in evidence on Wednesday evening.
XVII.
THE MAETERLINCK WEEK.
The New Budget, ^th April.
LAST week, in the theatrico-literary world, deserves to
be remembered as the Maeterlinck Week. It has set
us all testing our early estimates of Maeterlinck, arid
testing them I was going to say in the fierce light of
the stage, but that stereotype is quite inapplicable to
the case of Pelleas et Melisande as performed by the
"Theatre de 1'CEuvre." In the mystic gloom of the
theatre, then, we have, as Mr. Saintsbury would say,
corrected our impressions of the Flemish poet's art ;
and the corrections have been all to his advantage.
" Those like him now who liked him not before,
And those who loved him well now love him more."
Many of us, too, have seen the poet in the flesh, and
have found him no posing coterie-Colossus, but a
112 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
simple, natural, melancholy mortal, who happens to
have devised a singularly beautiful and poignantly
dramatic form of expression for his overmastering
sense of the strangeness and pathos of man's little
life in the midst of the Immensities. To say that
this is the burden of M. Maeterlinck's message is as
much as to say that it is not for the vulgar ear. Least
of all is it for the ear of the average theatrical audience,
or of those writers who make themselves, by instinct
and habit, the mouthpieces of that compact majority.
Among those, on the other hand, who have been
endowed with the poetic and metaphysic sense, there
has been but one voice, not only as to the exquisite
beauty of M. Maeterlinck's drama, but as to its
essential fitness for stage presentation. On that
point, however, I think there are some distinctions
to be drawn. I even go the length of suspecting
some of my most esteemed colleagues of a little
amiable affectation in persuading themselves that
they were quite satisfied with Pelleas et Melisande
as presented by M. Lugne-Poe's company.
Whether by chance or by design, the stage-arrange-
ments of "L'CEuvre" were practically those of the
Elizabethan theatre. Changes of scene were indi-
cated by the drawing forwards or backwards of a
pair of curtains hung about midway up the stage
" traverses " they were called in Shakespeare's time.
The whole stage, with the traverses opened, indicated
THE MAETERLINCK WEEK. 113
an "exterior"; the front stage, with the traverses
closed, stood for an "interior." True, there was
some attempt at painting both on the back-cloth and
the traverses, but it was so indistinct in the dim light
as to represent nothing at all, and to produce very
much the effect of the arras hangings behind which
Burbage-Hamlet killed Polonius. A sheet of green
gauze was stretched across the proscenium-opening;
the footlights were extinguished : what light there
was upon the stage came from the wings. A few
rough properties (again as in the Elizabethan times)
were occasionally thrust upon the scene a big box
or tank represented the two fountains which figure in
the play, and a little canvas " flat," not unlike the
front of a Punch-and-Judy show, did duty for the
castle wall pierced by Melisande's window. The
dresses such of them as were distinguishable
"looked," says Mr. Walkley, "like the attempts of
a child to imitate mediaeval costume with scraps of
mamma's old gowns." Mdlle. Mellot, as Pe'lleas,
wore a bunchy crimson blouse, chocolate-coloured
trunks (at least so it seemed to me), and what looked
like grey worsted tights. A more ungraceful and un-
masculine figure could scarcely be conceived. Mdlle.
Despres, as Melisande, wore a gown of clinging flesh-
colour, with a broad selvage and train of maroon or
dark purple. There was nothing, absolutely nothing,
to give pleasure to the eye in the dingy spectacle.
8
114 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
But (I may be told) it is not a "spectacle" at all.
It does not appeal to the 'eye, but to the ear and the
imagination. Are the ear and the imagination, then,
more effectually stimulated because the eye is starved
and even offended ? Not a bit of it ! The ideal
presentation should be one in which ear and eye
should take consentaneous delight, each in its due
degree. And M. Poe knows this as well as any one.
He does appeal to the eye, and (details apart) in the
right way, but with very inadequate means. The
gauze film (which should, however, be woven without
seams) is an excellent idea. The crepuscular and
Rembrandtesque effects are entirely in the spirit of
the poem if only they in any degree realised their
intention. The fact simply is that a very poor and
struggling artistic organisation has to attempt, with
its meagre resources, a task which would tax the in-
genuity of Professor Herkomer, even with Mr. Irving's
cheque-book to back it. By all means let us admire
and encourage the enthusiasm which inspires M.
Poe's enterprise. Let us admit with gratitude that
his appeal to the ear is entirely successful, and that it
is a joy to hear Maeterlinck's "fragile word-music,"
as Mr. Shaw happily puts it, so delicately and sym-
pathetically treated. But do not let us elevate into a
principle, and pretend to admire for its own sake, that
poverty, one might almost say that squalor, of scenic
apparatus, which is not really due to the austerity of
THE MAETERLINCK WEEK. 115
M. Poe's taste, but to the slenderness of his purse.
Better fine recitation and bad mounting than (what
we are accustomed to on the English stage) splendid
mounting and execrable recitation. Better dinginess,
if you will, than vulgar and garish display. But best
of all the harmonious art-work which ministers, in
their fitting measure, to all the aesthetic faculties at
once.
" Maeterlinck," say Mr. Shaw, Mr. Walkley, and
others, "is delightful on the stage. Representation
throws into relief his poetic and dramatic qualities."
On the other hand, M. Maeterlinck himself confesses
that he takes no pleasure in performances of his
works ; and Jules Lemaitre, in reviewing his Trois
Petits Drames pour Marionettes, strongly deprecates
all " indiscretes et forcement grossieres tentatives de
representation par de miserables comediens en chair
et en os." The Opera Comique performances leave
me halting between the two opinions. They proved
the possibility of truly delightful stage-renderings of
these fascinating works ; but they scarcely realised
the possibility. They set me pining to be a million-
aire, tha.t I might, at my own private theatre, mount
La Princesse Maleine and Pelleas et Melisande as they
ought to be mounted. Give me a roomy stage,
four or five thousand pounds, and the company of
" L'CEuvre " slightly strengthened and amended, and
I will put on these two plays (or perish in the attempt)
Il6 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
in such a way as to make M. Maeterlinck realise and
rejoice in his own stage-craft, and to wring from
M. Jules Lemaitre a contrite apology to the "miserable
flesh-and-blood actors." Can any one read Pell'eas et
Melisande without longing for the ocular realisation
of the exquisite series of pictures it contains? Of
course, the methods of the Lyceum and the Theatre-
Frangais are quite inapplicable. One would have
practically to invent new methods of scene-painting
and stage-lighting. But it is precisely the novelty of
the attempt that should render it, as Hilda Wangel
would say, "frightfully thrilling" or, in French, "tres-
e"motionnant."
We ought not to take too literally M. Maeterlinck's
description of his pieces as puppet-plays. There is,
to say the least of it, a dash of symbolism in the
designation. It indicates the poet's extra-mundane
point of view. Endowed in the very highest degree
with what may be called cosmic imagination, he
regards the life of man from an infinite aloofness, and
sees how small a part is played by the vaunted human
will in the drama of the planet. The tendency of all
his thought is to minimise the operation of the will
that is why some people, vaguely realising that morality
rests on the hypothesis of free-will, call his work
morbid and immoral. He sees mankind as a com-
pany of puppets, dancing on an infinitesimal stage in
an obscure corner of the universe, while Nature pipes
THE MAETERLINCK WEEK. 117
the music and Destiny pulls the strings. It is pri-
marily in this sense that his pieces may be called
"drames pour marionettes," or, as Lemaitre puts it,
"de 1'Eschyle pour pupazzi malades." Now M. Poe
has shown that this philosophical point of view may
be illustrated just as well by flesh-and-blood actors as
by marionettes. His company realised to perfection
the idea of wilUess creatures moving through a dream.
For a further analysis of M. Maeterlinck's talent I
must refer the reader to an admirable essay in Jules
Lemaitre's Impressions de Theatre, eighth series. On
one point, however, M. Lemaitre has not quite grasped
the poet's intention. He describes La Mart de Tinta-
giks as "simply the story of the assassination of a
young prince"; whereas M. Maeterlinck assures me
that he designed it as an allegory of the death of
a child, and that the iron door against which poor
Ygraine hurls herself so ineffectually symbolises the
portals of the tomb. It is with reference to this door
that M. Lemaitre quotes Victor Hugo's saying that
" there is nothing so interesting as a wall behind
which we know that something is happening." "This
tragic wall," M. Lemaitre continues, "appears in all
M. Maeterlinck's poems ; or, if it is not a wall, it is a
door; and if it is not a door, it is a curtained window."
I think he might have carried the idea further, and
shown that the greater part of M. Maeterlinck's
dialogue possesses the fascination of " a wall behind
Il8 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
which we know that something is happening." His
characters very seldom give direct utterance to what
is passing in their minds. They talk of everything
else in the world, and, by the aid of an indefinable,
elusive symbolism which is the poet's peculiar secret,
we are enabled to divine more than they know them-
selves of their innermost emotions. In this art of
adumbration M. Maeterlinck possesses an astonishing
mastery.
And just in this (I intend no paradox) our sym-
bolist is often more real than the realists. He knows,
as the Old Man says in Interieur, that " it is in the
soul that things happen," and that the most poignant
dramas are not those which come to the surface in
words. This is, on the whole, an inarticulate world.
Comparatively few real-life dramas work themselves
out in analytic scenes, like those of Rosmersholm, or
The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith. We may not, indeed,
talk of swans, and cypresses, and fountains, and
forests, and nightingales; but we babble of the
influenza and the Speakership, and the Boat-race, and
bi-metallism, and the Yellow Book, while passion is
seething in our veins or remorse gnawing at our heart-
strings. It is true that in our small-talk we do not
consciously symbolise our great emotions ; yet who
knows but that a higher intelligence might be able to
divine even in the chatter of an afternoon " at home "
the inmost secrets of the assembled puppet-souls?
"THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME." 119
M. Maeterlinck, at any rate, knows how to make
reticence voluble. He is the poet not only of will-
lessness, but of wordlessness. His most character-
istic scenes remind me of the refrain of a little song
which occurs (I think) in James Albery's Apple
Blossoms :
" Nothing said, yet all was told,
When the year was growing old."
It seems to be always autumn in M. Maeterlinck's
world.
XVII 1.
"THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME."
17/7* April.
"THE Girls they Took Around with Them" would
have been an apter title for the new Adelphi drama
than The Girl I Left Behind Me.* The U.S. Army,
according to Messrs. Franklin Fyles and David
Belasco, is the most amatory army on record I
mean, of course, in a quite idyllic and virtuous -way.
If our army had flirted as terribly in Flanders as did
these gallant troops in Montana : you may accent
the "gallant" in either way I fear " Malbrouk s'en
* April 13 August 10.
120 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
va-t-en guerre" would have had to be sung to a
different tune. Post Kennion is as full of love and
rumours of love as a young ladies' boarding-school.
When one of the Lieutenants is engaged to the
General's daughter, the whole regiment is paraded
on congratulation-duty; and, after deputing the other
Lieutenant to express their heartfelt sentiments, the
brave fellows proceed to strew the lovers' path with
flowers. Unfortunately the General's daughter (who
is the General's General, and commands the fort)
has engaged herself to the wrong Lieutenant, the
villain and dastard, who has in bygone days seduced
and deserted the Major's wife but that is practically
another story. The right Lieutenant, the Bayard of
the Backwoods, has a silent sorrow in his soul, for he
loves the General's daughter. She, you may be sure,
is far from insensible to his merits; but her troth is
plighted, and there is nothing to be done. Then the
right Lieutenant and the wrong 'un ride off together
a-scouting; the villain commits an act of cowardice,
of which he accuses the hero; and the General, like
the ninny he is, believes him. Not so the General's
daughter. In order to vindicate her hero's courage,
she sends him on a forlorn hope, to bring succour to
the beleaguered fort; and the situation is a good
one after its kind, and deserved the tumultuous
applause which greeted it. A forlorn hope, in mili-
tary melodrama, is, of course, the safest of services;
"THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME." 121
and just as the stockade is being carried, and the
General is preparing to shoot his daughter, to save
her from the clutches of the redskins, the right Lieu-
tenant rushes in at the head of the rescuing party,
and all is well. It takes another act, or, rather, two
minutes of another act, finally to baffle the villain
the rest of the act being given up to the flirtations
of the two pairs of comic lovers, all conducted with
the strictest propriety, under the fatherly eye of the
General. By way of showing that we are in a
democratic country, the right Lieutenant's pretty
sister makes love to a handsome private in her
brother's company. In the stockade scene, when
the danger is at its height, the General's daughter
bids the handsome private keep watch over the
slumbers of his lady-love. The wrong Lieutenant
orders him to some other and less agreeable duty,
and the private declines to obey, on the plea that he
cannot desert the post assigned him by the heroine.
The General intervenes in the dispute with delicate
tact, suggests a compromise, and then gives the
Lieutenant a mild reproof for wanting to tear a
soldier away from his sleeping sweetheart. " Forty
years in the army," says the doughty old warrior,
" have taught me that a loyal lover is bound to be
a good soldier." And that is the moral of the play.
" It is a standing rule at the Admiralty," says Sir
Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore, " that love levels
122 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
all ranks." In the U.S. Army, it at any rate justifies
a full private in disobeying his lieutenant's orders.
But perhaps that is only if the lieutenant happens to
be a villain.
The play is short, crisp, and amusing. The comic
scenes have evidently lost some of their savour in
crossing the Atlantic; but the serious scenes are
comic enough, in all conscience. For my part, I
like the American national airs and the blue uniforms
I can always pass a happy evening under the Star-
Spangled Banner. But there is one point at which I
wanted to hiss, and which I do hereby hiss very
heartily. The Indian chiefs daughter, Fawn, of
course loves the right Lieutenant with a dog-like
devotion, and consequently sides with the pale-faces.
She has done them several services, and at last steals
into the stockade to tell them (what she fully believes
to be true) that the Lieutenant has been killed.
Would you believe that the good old General treats
her as a hostage, and tells her father that he will
shoot her if the attack on the fort be not dis-
continued? Even if she were a prisoner of war,
this would be a barbarous enough proceeding. But
she is practically on the footing of a guest, and even
of a benefactress. She has come of her own free
will, to render a last service to her pale-face friends.
" It is to save our own women," the General may
say; but if the women were worth saving, they would
"FANNY." 123
insist on being tomahawked and all the rest of it,
ten times over, rather than buy their safety by even
the threat of so abominable a crime. Certainly this
is a case in which the good old Adelphi maxim about
the man who lays his hand upon a woman, save in
the way of kindness, might with advantage be recalled
to the memory of General Kennion of the U.S.
Army.
The hero, heroine, and villain are played as usual
by Mr. Terriss, Miss Millward, and Mr. Abingdon.
Mr. F. H. Macklin is good as the General, and Mr.
Charles Fulton excellent as the Major. One pair
of comic lovers is pleasantly played by Mr. G. W.
Cockburn and Miss Hope Dudley, the other pair is
less happily treated by Mr. E. W. Gardiner and Miss
Marie Montrose. The reception of the play was
most enthusiastic.
XIX.
"FANNY" "DELIA HARDING" " THE LADIES'
IDOL" "THE SHOP-GIRL."
z\th April.
A RIDICULOUS rumour got abroad some time ago to
the effect that a new Censor had been appointed in
the room of the late Mr. Pigott. The details of the
124 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
story were quite preposterous. No one had ever
seen or heard of the alleged Mr. Radford or Romford
I forget the exact name it was obviously borrowed
from some novel of Anthony Trollope's or Mr. James
Payn's. The details of his career which went the
rounds of the papers were patently mythical the
bald inventions of baffled reporters. I was sceptical
from the first as to the existence of this impalpable
personality, this "parvi nominis umbra"; and the
portrait which was ultimately palmed off on some
confiding editors as that of the new Censor redoubled
my doubts. It had exactly the air of a composite
photograph, the generalised type of, say, a hundred
ordinary middle-class Englishmen. It was simply
"Monsieur Tout -le- Monde," the quintessentiated
Man-in-the-Street. However, I clearly discerned a
politic design in this daring personification ; so I
held my peace. The powers that be, I thought,
realise the absurdity and futility of the office, but are
prudently disinclined to incur the responsibility of
formally abolishing it. Even the wisest and most
necessary reform (they probably reflected) is always
attended by a certain temporary disturbance in the
even tenor of affairs. The open and definite sup-
pression of the Censorship might lead to a spasmodic
outbreak of licence on the one hand, of Puritanism
on the other. Let us, then, simply leave the office
in abeyance, appointing a Mrs. Harris, like the
"FANNY." 125
"Tulchan Bishops" of Scottish history, to draw the
fees (for plays are luxuries, and it is bad political
economy to remit a tax on luxuries), but practically
leaving playwrights and managers to their own devices.
Thus argued (I imagine) the authorities at St. James's;
and though I am personally no lover of compromise,
I did not feel it incumbent on me to cry, with Mrs.
Prig, " I don't believe there's no sich person !"
But the secret is a secret no longer, so why make
a pretence of keeping it up? Messrs. George R.
Sims and Cecil Raleigh, men of critical and pene-
trating intelligence, were not to be deceived by the
officially-promulgated myth. Like myself, they were
at once convinced of the non-entity (I use the term,
in its literal sense) of the alleged Censor; and I am
sorry to have to reproach them with taking an unfair
advantage of their superior insight. In order, no
doubt, to explode the myth, they made all haste to
write a farce, Fanny* which even the lamented Mr.
Pigott, indulgent as he always was to frivolity, could
not possibly have passed. It is very difficult to relate
in printable terms the imbroglio of the second act,
but I must make the attempt. A. and B. have just
been married when A. learns that a former wife of
his is not dead, so that his marriage is bigamous. C.
and D. are not married at all, but are mistaken for
man and wife by the mistress of the country house
* Strand Theatre, April 15 June I.
126 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
where the action passes, and, for reasons of their
own, cannot undeceive her. The whole humour,
then, of the latter half of the second act lies in the
fact that these two couples, one unmarried and the
other only nominally married, are each assigned a
single sleeping-apartment; and the great effect upon
which the authors (quite justly) relied is the bringing
in of the two bedroom candles. The men (and this,
I suppose, is what saves the " morality " of the farce)
are not in the least inclined to take advantage of
the position, and the "fun" consists chiefly of their
excuses for sitting up all night. At last a supposed
burglary provides them with the necessary pretext;
and in the morning, when the bride innocently asks
them whether it was quite necessary for them to
keep guard all night, one of them replies, with a sly
glance at the audience, "Oh, yes; it would never
have done to go to bed under the circumstances."
Now, I submit to Messrs. Sims and Raleigh that this
is not playing quite fair. They should have taken
some other way of proving the non-existence of the
censorship. Though they, and I, and a few other
discerning persons, may have seen through the official
hocus-pocus, the general public still believes in the
mythical "Examiner of Plays," and consequently
feels itself exempt from all responsibility in respect
to the morals of the stage. If the censorship had
been openly and formally abolished, there would
"FANNY." 127
certainly have been some protest, from the better
part of the audience, against such witless and vulgar
tomfoolery. It is only because the propriety of this
stuff is supposed to have been officially guaranteed
by the chief officer of Her Majesty's household that
it passes muster with decent people. Messrs. Sims
and Raleigh, then, take advantage at once of the
non-existence of the Censor and the non-existence of
any public sense of responsibility a course of action
which is not, I think, quite worthy of them. Fanny
is not without a certain ingenuity, like that of a third-
rate French vaudeville; and, being played with un-
flagging spirit by Messrs. Shine, Day, and Harwood,
Miss Alma Stanley, Miss May Whitty, and Miss
Lydia Cowell, it succeeds in keeping the audience
amused. But I wish the public-spirited authors had
chosen some wittier method of demolishing the
Censor legend.
Some people, I find, profess themselves un-
convinced, even by Fanny, that the censorship has
been left in abeyance. They actually believe in the
corporeal existence of a Mr. Redford that they
declare to be his name. "Wait," they say, "until
some one writes a serious play, with any sort of
originality in it, and you'll soon see whether there's
a Censor or not." Well, absolute negation is un-
philosophical that I understand to be one of the
main Foundations of Belief. There may be a Mr.
128 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Redford at St. James's, and there may be Mahatmas
in Tibet But I think all available evidence points
in the opposite direction.
If I were to say all I think about the conduct of
M. Sardou in letting such a play as Delia Harding*
go forth from his workshop, I should probably receive
a polite invitation from two of his friends to step
across to Ostend and make his personal acquaintance
at the distance of ten paces. But it is really we who
are insulted. M. Sardou evidently thinks that any-
thing is good enough for England and America, and
has given us the dregs of his invention. The puzzle
is how Mr. Cornyns Carr ever came to produce such
a play. Were it not for the remarkable and tasteful
liberality of the setting he has given it, one might
conclude that he had somehow bought a pig in a
poke, and, relying on the name of Sardou, placed
himself under contract to produce the piece before
he had seen the manuscript. But if that were the
case, if he did not himself believe in it, he would
scarcely have cast it so well and mounted it so
elaborately. The whole affair is a mystery how a
playwright of reputation could sell such a play, and
how a manager of tact and experience could buy it.
Even in the 'seventies, at the height of the Sardou
mania, Delia Harding could not have succeeded.
To-day, it is simply an abortive anachronism. If a
* Comedy Theatre, April 17 May 17.
" DELIA HARDING." 1 29
clever and somewhat malicious parodist had set
himself to caricature the methods and mannerisms
of the author of Les Pattes de Mouche and Dora, he
could scarcely have produced a crueller travesty than
this. It has every one of Sardou's weaknesses
ready-made and bran-stuffed characters, false hero-
isms, ridiculous reticences, an abuse of coincidence,
incessant juggling with letters and telegrams and
it has little or none of his characteristic ingenuity
and deftness. The bare-faced audacity with which,
having exhausted his original plot at the end of the
second act, he tacked on a new and ridiculous
poisoning-story to fill up the remaining half-hour,
was the last straw which broke down the patience
of the audience. Indeed, I was greatly struck
throughout by the justness of perception displayed
by the pit and gallery. Without being at all noisy
or turbulent, they laid their finger, so to speak, on
the weakest spots of M. Sardou's fable with unerring
instinct. Surely the experience of that evening must
have convinced Mr. Carr (if, indeed, he needed
convincing) that the day for such mechanical and
lifeless yarn-spinning is past. By far the best things
in the play are some of Mr. Carr's own happily-
turned sayings in the first act. Miss Marion Terry
played her lifeless part with a great deal of charm;
Miss Dorothy Dorr made all that was possible of a
most impotent and ineffectual traitress; and Miss
9
I3O THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Rose Leclercq gave excellent point to the aforesaid
witticisms of Mr. Carr's. Some of the audience
seemed to have taken a sudden objection to Mr.
Fred Terry, who played the hero precisely as he has
played a score of other heroes. Mr. Cyril Maude
was good as a conventional valetudinarian; and Mr.
Mackintosh's highly-coloured portrait of the villain
seemed to be founded on the patriotic assumption
that all villains are necessarily foreigners. He left
the gentleman's nationality vague, but an Englishman
he certainly was not.
With The Ladies? Idol* at the Vaudeville, Mr.
Arthur Law takes his place among the playwrights
who count. There is real humour in the conception
and ingenuity in the execution of this little piece, to
which the designation " farcical comedy " is, for once,
appropriate. In point of workmanship, it is miles
ahead of The New Boy or Charlie's Aunt, which
consist merely in the more or less mechanical elabo-
ration of one grotesque idea. Of course it is the
sheer simplicity of their root-ideas that makes the
fortune of these two popular absurdities; and it is
quite possible that the greater complexity and sobriety
of Mr. Law's new invention may render it less attrac-
tive than its predecessor. It really belongs rather to
the Pinero than to the Brandon Thomas school of
farce. The conception of the drawing-room warbler,
* April 1 8 June 15.
"THE LADIES' IDOL." 131
who exploits his romantic reputation in Mayfair in
order to return with a good round sum at his bank to
the more congenial joys of Brixton and domesticity,
is not at all unworthy of Mr. Pinero himself; and the
development of the theme, though uneven, abounds
in happy touches. The first act is charming; the
second is scrappy and flags from time to time; but
the third seemed to me to pull together again and to
end the play quite satisfactorily. Mr. Law may boast
himself the one dramatist who has brought a baby
into farce without making it offensive. The writing
is bright throughout and occasionally witty. In the
third act, Mr. Law got some capital effects out of
a sort of counterpoint in dialogue, making two
characters, each of whom is absorbed in his own
train of thought, and almost entirely regardless of the
other, carry on what purports to be a conversation,
but is in reality a species of double soliloquy. Mr.
Weedon Grossmith is delightful as^the Ladies' Idol;
Miss May Palfrey plays Dora Vale with humour and
tact; Miss Esme Beringer shows a real gift of comedy
in the part of Lady Helen Frant; Mr. John Beau-
champ, as Mr. Purley, proves his versatility by
a very clever bit of eccentric character-acting; and
Mr. C. P. Little is very amusing as Lord Finch
Callowdale.
Miss Ellaline Terriss, released from the Lyric, now
lends the aid of her almost pathetic prettiness and
132 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
charm to The Shop-Girl* at the Gaiety, playing the
title-part. Miss Terriss is not only pretty, but bright
and intelligent, and adds substantially to the attrac-
tiveness of the entertainment. The piece, by the
way, has been relieved of the foolishly offensive lines
against which the first-night audience protested and
the Censor didn't.
XX.
"VANITY FAIR" "THE PASSPORT."
\st May.
DURING his long period of silence, Mr. G. W.
Godfrey has not suffered his wit to rust. Much of
the dialogue of Vanity Fair\ is really clever, and all of
it is bright and showy. Moreover, he has provided
Mrs. John Wood with a brilliant part, which she plays
in a perfect whirlwind of humour and enjoyment.
In her own peculiar line of characters, no comic
actress of this generation can approach Mrs. John
Wood; and Mrs. Brabazon-Tegg, ci devant Mrs. James
Crump, alias Daisy Douglas of the Halls, nee Jennie
Watson of nowhere in particular, is certainly one of
* See Theatrical World of 1894, p. 316. Miss Terriss
appeared April 15.
t April 27 July 24 ; September 23 November 2.
"VANITY FAIR." 133
the most effective parts that ever fell in her way.
With wit and Mrs. John Wood, then, it would be a
very difficult audience which could fail to pass a
pleasant evening; and, as a matter of fact, Saturday
evening at the Court passed pleasantly enough.
Personally, indeed, I ought in strict consistency to
have been enchanted, for the play came near to
realising a favourite ideal or imagination of mine
a dramatised Du Maurier.* The plot was of the
meagrest, and was kept discreetly in the background,
while the foreground was occupied with ever-shifting
groups of Du Maurier or Greiffenhagen figures speak-
ing dialogue which might quite well have been cut up
into a series of " legends " for the drawings of these
satirists. This is a style of comedy which I have
long been advocating; and now that I have got it,
why am I not happy ? Well, my rapture is tempered
by a sense of something factitious and second-hand
in Mr. Godfrey's satire. There is little or nothing
newly or truly observed in it. Mr. Godfrey has
simply made a mosaic of all the current topics of
satirical allusion in the comic papers and on the
stage. If we could accept Vanity fair as the work
of an original observer and thinker, it would be a
ferocious indictment of society; and I am far from
* I was here thinking, of course, of Mr. Du Maurier the
artist, not of the author of Trilby. Mr. Paul Potter's " drama-
tised Du Maurier " was not yet looming on the horizon.
134 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
saying that such an indictment might not be a " true
bill." But this is not it. Mr. Godfrey has neither
the outlook nor the insight of a Juvenal. He simply
follows a satiric fashion, and caricatures (he calls his
play a " caricature ") not life itself, but other people's
caricatures of life. There is nothing easier than to
be a little satirist, nothing more difficult than to be
a great one; and such a sweeping indictment as Mr.
Godfrey brings would have demanded a great satirist
to support it. The invective is shrill and insincere
and by "insincere" I do not, of course, mean hypo-
critical, but unrealised, imitative. We miss the large
philosophy of life which ought to lie behind it all.
Mr. Godfrey shows no understanding of the essence
of the situation, but merely depicts in crude colours
some of its surface aspects, seen, as one cannot help
suspecting, through other men's eyes. He has pro-
duced a piece of brilliant stage-journalism, not of
solid dramatic literature.
The title, Vanity Fair, is a mistake. Classic titles
cannot thus be annexed with impunity. If, hence-
forth, in mentioning Vanity Fair we have always
to say "Thackeray's" or "Godfrey's," as the case
may be, we may justly resent having this inconveni-
ence forced upon us. If, on the other hand, we feel
no necessity for specifying the author, it can only
mean that either one Vanity Fair or the other has
sunk deep into oblivion, and well, Mr. Godfrey
"THE PASSPORT." 135
himself may forecast the probabilities. Mr. Arthur
Cecil is good in an ineffective part; Mr. G. VV. Anson
puts a great deal of colour and conviction into the
villain; Miss Granville is charming as the sole female
representative of common-sense and decency, but
seemed to me now and then to miss the just
emphasis of her lines. Other characters are well
played by Mr. Sugden, Mr. Wyes, Miss Nancy
Noel, and Miss Helena Dacre. The mounting is
lavish, and here I am at the end of my notice with-
out having so much as mentioned Mrs. Brabazon-
Tegg's dream of her trial for bigamy, which is the
great feature of the third act. It is an old device
ingeniously applied to a new end a trick of melo-
drama adapted to the purposes of satire. The idea
is good, but somehow the effect struck me as scarcely
commensurate with the effort. Mr. Godfrey seemed
to fall between the two stools of realism and fantasy.
His trial scene, though of course far enough from
being true to fact, appeared to aim at truth, and was
at any rate no more remote from it than the trials we
are accustomed to see on the stage. I cannot help
thinking that, in a dream, a little freer exercise of
fantasy would have been permissible.
There are some exceedingly funny scenes in
The Passport* by Messrs. B. C. Stephenson and
* April 25 ; transferred to Trafalgar Square Theatre, July 29
August 24.
136 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
W. Yardley, at Terry's Theatre. The first and third
acts especially are full of comic material cleverly
worked up. It is a farce of the purely mechanical
order, innocent of character, observation, or satire,
and relying throughout on a series of wild coincidences
and extravagant misunderstandings; but on its own
unpretending level it is a competent and effective
piece of work. Not having read " Colonel Savage's
celebrated novel My Official Wife" I do not know
what may be the extent of the obligation which the
authors confess to it. But in any case it seems to be
confined to the first act, and the amazing complica-
tions of the second and third acts are understood to
be all their own. Miss Gertrude Kingston is quite
admirable in the part of a lady with no memory, and
Mr. George Giddens, Mr. Alfred Maltby, Mr. Yorke
Stephens, Mr. J. L. Mackay, Miss Fanny Coleman,
and Miss Cicely Richards all help to make the piece
go with the requisite buoyancy and rapidity.
"A STORY OF WATERLOO." 137
XXI.
"A STORY OF WATERLOO" "DON QUIXOTE"
" JOHN-A-DREAMS."
%th May.
THERE was scarcely a dry eye in the Lyceum Theatre*
when the curtain fell on A Story of Waterloo.
Whether mine were among the few or the many, it
consists not with the dignity of criticism to say ; but
this I will say that at the end of Don Quixote it
would have taken very little to make me weep, or
indulge in some still more unprintable expression of
feeling. Never was there such a disappointment as
Mr. Irving's performance. Of course the fault was
largely our own. Disappointment is correlative with
expectation, and Mr. Irving is not responsible for the
extravagance of our hopes. But the fact remains
that we had hoped great things. We had all been
proclaiming for years that Don Quixote was the one
character of all others which Mr. Irving was born
to incarnate (or should one say " inossify " ?), and that
* A Story of Waterloo (see Theatrical World of 1894, p. 343)
and Don Quixote, produced May 4, ran till June I. Between
Whitsun Week (June 3) and the end of the season, July 27,
these plays were occasionally repeated, and performances were
given of Nance Oldfield, The Bells, The Merchant of Venice,
Faust, Louis XI. , Becket, Much Ado about Nothing, Charles I. ,
The Lyons Mail, The Corsican Brothers, King Arthur, Macbeth,
and Journeys End in Lovers Meeting (see Theatrical World of
1894, p. 170).
138 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
this creation would be the crown and glory of his
career. Mr. Irving himself, it is clear, took a juster
view of the matter, else he would not have been
content with the single "chapter" of Mr. Wills's
work presented on Saturday. He evidently felt no
intellectual impulse towards the effort, but was partly
goaded into it by our insistence, partly tempted by the
convenience of filling up with it an odd corner of a
temporary bill. He would have done far, far better
to have let it alone, and played Jingle, or Macaire, or
Jeremy Diddler, characters in which his peculiar cast
of humour pleases many people and hurts no one,
dead or alive. His Don Quixote, on the other hand,
can please those only who neither know nor care
about the Knight of the Rueful Visage, and must hurt,
and that very sensibly, all who know and love him. It
is strange that Mr. Irving's imagination should fail him
so fatally in approaching what seemed so congenial a
character. He plays him like a combination of
Malvolio and Parolles Malvolio in his strut, Parolles
in his insincerity. He " gives him away " from first
to last by aid of farcical whimsies and sidelong glances
at the audience. Where is it recorded that Don
Quixote used his sword to turn over the pages of
Amadis de Gaul, or tried to carry a ten-foot lance
erect through a seven-foot doorway? Where does
Mr. Irving find the catchword, " I say no more
God knows what I mean " ? The phrase may doubt-
"DON QUIXOTE." 139
less occur in Cervantes, but a catchword it is not.
What is the authority for the incident of the pump,
certainly the most amazing I ever saw on any stage ?
Don't tell me that these inventions are retained out
of piety towards the manes of the late Mr. Wills.
Mr. Irving is far above such superstitions; and, in any
case, piety towards Mr. Wills would be a poor excuse
for impiety towards Cervantes. When there are ten
thousand genuine traits and incidents ready to hand
if only time and space could be found for them, why
take up precious space and time by the interpolation
of spurious absurdities ? It is as though a jeweller,
having all Golconda at command, and only a little
ring to set it in, should fill up half the circlet with
paste diamonds. But it is not in individual touches
and incidents that this Don Quixote chiefly offends ;
it is in the actor's total and radical misconception of
the character. Mr. Irving pitches his Don Quixote
throughout in the key of farce; whereas he ought
clearly to be a figure of romance, grotesquely habited,
and placed in farcical surroundings. His Don Quixote
should have been essentially of the kindred of his
Charles I. and King Arthur, not of his Jingle and
Macaire. Where were the large and magnificent
gestures ? Where was the high-flown, orotund utter-
ance? Where was the magnanimity? Where the
rodomontade? Mr. Irving never moved his arms
from his side, except upon compulsion, and he spoke
140 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
in a dry, hesitating, mincing, whimsical fashion,
without an atom of sonority or conviction. Even in
reading his romances, the Don seemed to be critically
pondering them, instead of rolling forth their periods
with gusto and revelling in great names and greater
deeds. Though he had not a dozen sentences to
speak, Mr. S. Johnson's Sancho contained far more
of the spirit of Cervantes.
This dolorous adventure, however, may not be
without its uses. It proved that Don Quixote ought
never to be attempted on the stage. One realised
that even if Mr. Irving's performance had been
masterly instead of mistaken, it would still have given
more pain than pleasure to those who care anything
for the hidalgo of La Mancha. It is not (as one had
imagined) the physical difficulties of the theme the
windmills, the sheep, and what Mr. Meredith would
call the "thwackings" that must keep Don Quixote
remote from the boards; it is the inherent moral
cruelty of the fable. The better the Don was acted
the more intolerable would the spectacle become.
No doubt we have somewhat idealised (or sentimental-
ised, if you like to put it so) Cervantes' idea. There
are many things in the book itself that we wish he
had not told, or had told otherwise. That is natural,
inevitable. The Don is not of an age, but for all
time. He is not one of the characters which we can
regard from a merely historic standpoint. We cannot
"DON QUIXOTE." 141
we would not if we could throw ourselves back
into a sixteenth-century attitude of mind in contem-
plating his "faictes et gestes." An ingenious gentle-
man has lately been enlarging (apropos of Hamlet] on
the callousness with which our Elizabethan forefathers
regarded insanity. The fact is certain, though it is
not equally clear what it has to do with the feigned
madness of Hamlet. On the other hand, it is strictly
relevant to the question whether Don Quixote could
ever be tolerable on the modern stage. Cervantes,
or at any rate his contemporaries, found madness as
a whole far more frankly ludicrous than we do
they could laugh at it with an easier mind. And
here we have no mere commonplace insanity, but the
noblest and most lovable madness that can visit
mortal brain. Who can bear to see it buffeted,
flouted, besmirched, and befooled? We could as
soon find amusement in seeing
"From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow,
And Swift expire, a driveller and a show."
We can read the book with pleasure because (if I may
put a foreword to an old proverb) reading is only
imagining, seeing is believing. Here is precisely the
case to apply the well-worn tag :
" Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quse sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus ; "
and one might even read "irritant" in the modern
142 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
rather than the classical sense. We may regret, then,
for Mr. Irving's sake, that he has made a false step
in attempting Don Quixote ; we have not to lament,
on our own behalf, that he has missed a great oppor-
tunity.
I pass with gladness, with enthusiasm, to A Story of
Waterloo^ of which I said something in December
last when Mr. Irving presented it at the Garrick. It
bears very well the test of a second seeing. A trifle
it is, no doubt j but a trifle well worth doing, both on
the author's part and on the actor's. It must
not be subjected, of course, to realistic or anti-
idealistic criticism. It is a piece, of unblushing
idealism a frank appeal to our most rudimentary
emotions. Yet, if there were not a large infusion of
truth in this Arms and the Man's Old Style, as it
might be called perhaps quite as much of the
essential truth as in Arms and the Man : New Style
we may be sure it would appeal to our emotions in
vain. Dr. Conan Doyle, in a word, has shown him-
self a true humorist, and has provided Mr. Irving with
his very best character-part, a genuine creation. It
is, perhaps, unnecessarily ugly, especially n its vocal
manifestations. The inarticulate moans and whines
in which the actor indulges seem to me overdone
not from the point of view of nature, but from that
of art. In studying an essentially painful pheno-
menon, such as senility, the artist should be not
"JOHN-A-DREAMS." 143
only permitted but enjoined to choose, out of many
possible cases, one of the less repulsive rather than
one of the more except when repulsiveness happens
to be of the essence of the dramatic problem, as in
this instance it is not. Corporal Gregory would
certainly be none the less impressive for being a
shade less grotesque ; but otherwise Mr. Irving's per-
formance is altogether masterly in its high elaboration
and admirably un-self-conscious humour and pathos.
It is a piece of acting no one can afford to miss.
Mr. Beerbohm Tree on his return from America,
with the laurels of Boston yet green on his brow, has
resumed the interrupted run of John-a-Dreams* that
"owdacious" work (as Corporal Brewster would say)
which frighted the Times from its propriety. Mrs.
Tree now wears the frayed garment of Kate Cloud,
in lieu of Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and wears it very
prettily. She acts the part with sincerity and skill,
if only she could get a little variety into the mono-
tonous plaintiveness of her voice. For the rest, the
cast remains almost unaltered, except that Miss Lily
Hanbury now plays Mrs. Wanklyn intelligently and
pleasantly, but without Miss Janette Steer's peculiar
fitness for the part. I am sorry to note, by-the-by,
that Mr. Herbert Ross now grossly overdoes his
sketch of Percy de Coburn, which so delighted us
on the first night.
* May 2 May 22.
144 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
XXII.
"THE HOME SECRETARY."
i$th May.
HARD measure, as it seems to me, has been meted
out to The Home Secretary* at the Criterion. It has
not been accepted for what it is, but attacked for
what it is not. Its unreality and improbability have
been dwelt upon, as though it in any way pretended
to be real or probable. Mr. Carton has chosen to
write a romance, and, instead of asking ourselves
whether it is spirited and entertaining, we ask him,
with asperity, what he means by writing a romance
at all. Why look for qualities which the author
renounces in the very title of his play? If he had
aimed at an effect of reality, had wanted to "take us
in " for a single moment, he would never have chosen
a notoriously non-existent hero, and presented a set
of events which, if they had ever happened, must
necessarily be familiar to all of us, at least in outline.
We allow the privileges of romance to the novelist;
why should we deny them to the playwright? Mr.
Anthony Hope, for instance, wishing to amuse our
idleness with a tale of mystery, intrigue, and heroism,
invents a kingdom and a royal family, pedigree and
* May 7 July 20. Reproduced at Shaftesbury Theatre,
October 21 November 13.
" THE HOME SECRETARY." 145
all, with a profusion of picturesque scenery and pro-
perties, and writes The Prisoner of Zenda. We know
very well that there is no such region as Ruritania,
no such family as the Elphbergs, Red or Black nay,
that the thing has not even typical truth as repre-
senting some class of Continental principalities and
rulers. It is, and we know it to be, a pure figment
of the imagination; yet we do not cry out upon its
"unreality," and treat Mr. Hope as a shamelessly
mendacious person. On the contrary, we willingly
join him in the game of make-believe which procures
us three or four hours' forgetfulness of both reality
and realism. It seems to me that if we had
approached it in the right spirit, Mr. Carton's play
might have afforded us somewhat similar pastime.
Just as we know that there is no room on the map
of Europe for Ruritania, so also do we know that
there is no room in political history for the Right
Hon. Duncan Trendel, M.P., her Majesty's Secretary
of State for the Home Department. He is not even
generalised from a wide observation of holders of
that or any other office he does not in the least
represent the type " Home Secretary," or even the
type " Minister." He and his happenings are
invented, or perhaps one should say compiled, to no
other end but our entertainment. Mr. Carton may
say with the Attic amateurs, " My true intent is all
for your delight ; " and we, forgetful of the rebuke of
10
146 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Theseus, churlishly refuse to be entertained or to
take any delight in the matter !
I say " we " in an impersonal sense, for personally
I was entertained; and I am convinced that other
simple souls would agree with me if the critics gave
them half a chance. If one were asked to name
the two perennially effective and popular figures of
theatrical romance, one would reply without a
moment's hesitation, "John Mildmay and Captain
Swift " in other words, the impassive, long-headed,
much-enduring, still-and-deep hero, and the polished,
daring, picturesque criminal who lounges in the
gilded saloons of the very society which is implac-
ably leagued to hunt him down. Now I say it was
a happy idea of Mr. Carton's to bring John Mildmay
and Captain Swift together in one play. By making
Mildmay a Minister he was enabled to work in a
great deal of light and agreeable political badinage,
quite as good as we have any right to expect on a
stage from which serious political criticism is ex-
cluded. And by making Captain Swift a deliberate
and not merely an instinctive anarchist, an " advance
agent for the millennium," he secured an opening for
some effective rhetoric about social idealisms, with-
out prejudice to the indispensable opportunities for
making Hawkshaw the Detective tap the Captain
on the shoulder, and say, " I wish I were as near my
man as I am to you now," with other " little ironies "
" THE HOME SECRETARY." 147
of a like nature. Moreover, between Mildmay and
Swift he was enabled to place a third figure of
romance, not quite so old-established as these, but
no less popular. This is the goddess-heroine,
divinely tall and divinely intransigeant on ethical
questions, who seems' to have been created for, if
not by, the art of Miss Julia Neilson and her relative,
Miss Lily Hanbury. Miss Hanbury led the way
(if I remember rightly) with Lady Windermere, and
Lady Marchant in A Bunch of Violets; but Miss
Neilson holds the longer record with the Puritan
maiden in A Woman of no Importance, the oppres-
sive wife of the Ideal Husband, and now Mr. Carton's
heroine. It is characteristic of this imposing per-
sonage always to get herself into some scrape which
casts a momentary shadow upon her fair fame; there-
fore there was nothing to stand in the way of the
strongly emotional situation which Mr. Carton re-
quired for his last act. In brief, then, here was a
romance containing all the well-tried ingredients of
popular success, seasoned with a very pretty wit and
a good deal of that facile satire upon social corruption
now so much in vogue and yet we must needs
quarrel with it, because, forsooth, it was "improb-
able"! Quite seriously, I deplore this sudden
solemnity on the part of the critics. If dramatists
are to be denied the right to tell a patently and
avowedly cock-and-bull story, using it as a vehicle
148 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
for bright dialogue and airy social satire, they are
cut off from one of the most fertile corners of the
" scanty plot of ground " allowed them on the English
stage. To my thinking, we should welcome and
foster the dramatic romance or satiric melodrama a
restful half-way house between the farce and the so-
called problem play. It is full of possibilities, and
affords ample room for imagination, humour, and
delicate workmanship. These qualities, if not in
their highest development, are by no means absent
from Mr. Carton's work. When I remember that
The Bauble Shop was greeted with acclamation on
the same stage only two years ago, I ask myself
whether it is our judgment that has ripened in the
interval, or our temper that has soured.
True it is that Mr. Carton has not put his romance
together so deftly as he might have. One does not
see why the possession of the traitor's letter should
be of such overwhelming importance to Lecaile-
Uangerfield. He might like to have a glance at the
handwriting with a view to vengeance in the present
and safety in the future. But we are led to believe
that his chance of escape from the toils that are
closing round him somehow depends on his posses-
sion of that scrap of paper; and I rack my brains in
vain to think how that can be. If the document
contained the plan for his capture, one could under-
stand it better; though even in that case it would
"THE HOME SECRETARY." 149
seem that, the existence of such a plan once known,
the details mattered little, since Dangerfield could
always baffle it for the moment by simply not doing
what he would otherwise have done, and what the
traitor must have counted on his doing. Mr. Carton
may have in his mind very convincing reasons why
his apostle of anarchy should stake everything on the
possession of the paper, but he has sedulously kept
them to himself; the result being that the great
situation of the last act has a lugged-in air which
does much to mar its effect. Then, again, Mr.
Carton does not sufficiently eschew that obviousness
of incident which audiences (first-night audiences,
at any rate) have of late taken to resenting rather
fiercely. To use Morris Lecaile's own metaphor
(somewhat perilous as he introduces it), Mr. Carton
is too apt to show his trumps before their time.
When we see an open French-window, the despatch-
box containing the fateful document right opposite it,
as though ready to walk away of its own accord, and
a high-backed arm-chair discreetly averting its face on
the other side of the room, we anticipate at a glance
the burglarious entrance of Lancelot Lecaile, while
his stainless Guinevere lies latent in the chair. When,
at last, in the fulness of time, all this duly occurs, we
have grown tired of waiting for it, and can scarcely
repress an "Ah!" of sarcastic satisfaction as the lady
snuggles into her ambush, and the long-looked-for
150 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
marauder tiptoes in at the inviting casement. " The
art of the theatre," as M. Sarcey is never tired of
quoting from M. Dumas, "is the art of preparations";
but there are very clear limits to the validity of this
axiom, and over-preparation is certainly the most
fatal of errors. That (among other things) was what
wrecked the last act of Delia Harding. The clumsiest
thing a dramatist can possibly do is to lay a long and
elaborate train for the ignition of a squib. We take
pleasure in an event which surprises and yet convinces
us which we feel we ought to have foreseen. We
scoff at an occurrence which nothing but our know-
ledge of the tricks of the stage could possibly lead us
to expect, yet which, knowing these tricks, we have
foreseen from afar, and resented in anticipation.
Mr. Carton's style has been a good deal criticised,
not, certainly, without reason. His dialogue is a
bewildering maze of metaphors; his tropes do tread
upon each other's heels, so fast they follow. His
Anarchist talks of "a chaos of blind justice and
stagnant law," and remarks that " science has given
to revolutionists the key of death, and they have
turned it in the lock while all Europe stood trembling
on the threshold." The Home Secretary says to his
wife, "The estrangement you have built up between
us has received its coping stone," and she informs
him that she has " turned the lens of truth upon her
own heart." and that "when he first gave her his
"THE HOME SECRETARY." 151
name she hung round it her garland of wild flowers."
There is also an astonishing passage in which two
statesmen, over their after-dinner cigarettes, talk for
an interminable time in a sort of medical jargon, like
doctors holding a post-mortem on the body politic.
But this tropical luxuriance of imagery ought to be
considered, not as an unredeemed defect, but as the
excess of a quality. Mr. Carton has wit and imagina-
tion, if only he would keep them in check; he has a
style of his own, though at present an unchastened
one. A quality in excess may always be corrected; a
quality absent can seldom be acquired. Mr. Pinero
was at one time- not so very long ago addicted to
a similar redundance of metaphor; now even his
detractors admit the nervous sobriety of his serious
dialogue.
Mr. Charles Wyndham is admirable as the Right
Hon. John Mildmay, and Mr. Lewis Waller is
sombrely romantic as Captain Lecaile-Swift. As
the ideally virtuous Mrs. Trendel, Miss Julia Neilson
appears, or rather reappears, in a character she has
made her own; while Miss Mary Moore is rapidly
making her own the class of flighty and irresponsible
women of the world to which Mrs. Thorpe-Didsbury
belongs. Why Mr. Brookfield should make this
lady's " Prince Rupert ; ' so aggressively ill-mannered
I cannot guess, but he succeeds in amusing the
audience. Mr. Sydney Brough and Miss Maude
152 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Millett play the indispensable turtle-doves very plea-
santly, and Mr. D. S. James and Mr. De Lange
contribute quaint character sketches.
XXIII.
"THE TRIUMPH OF THE PHILISTINES" THE SECOND
MRS. EBBSMITH.
2 2nd May,
MR. HENRY ARTHUR JONES, it appears to me, is
developing a manner, or rather experimenting in a
new convention, feeling his way towards a new
formula. The critics who have set their heart on
a revival of comedy, as distinct from farce on the one
hand and drama on the other, ought to keep a sympa-
thetic eye upon him and hearten him on, judiciously
chastening his errors, no doubt, yet with affection
rather than asperity, with rods, not with scorpions.
Personally, I am rather a heretic on the subject of
comedy. I think there are far fewer comedies in the
world than is generally supposed, most of the plays
which pass under that name being essentially either
dramas or farces. Still, one can conceive a satirico-
sentimental treatment of life, fantastic, yet keeping
on the hither limit of farce, to which the name of
"comedy" might conveniently be appropriated; and
"TRIUMPH OF THE PHILISTINES." 153
it is towards this that Mr. Jones appears to be feeling
or groping? his way. Whether he himself will be
the man to perfect and, as it were, to fix the formula,
depends on several eventualities. Mainly, one foresees,
it depends on the question whether he can succeed in
capturing that indefinable, elusive, and yet indis-
pensable quality, distinction distinction of thought,
distinction of style. As yet he is far enough from it
rather further, perhaps, in The Triumph of the Philis-
tines* than in The Crusaders. But he is full of aspiration
and experimental ardour. He has achieved a position
which gives him a free hand, and he will certainly not
rest satisfied with repeating himself. It has been the
facile fashion in several quarters to flaunt an indis-
criminating and insolent contempt for all Mr. Jones's
works and ways. Some day, perhaps, he may rejoice
the hopeful among us, and surprise the scornful, by
producing a work of really ingenious idea and con-
sistently delicate workmanship. In the meantime, he
is casting off the trammels of convention and imita-
tion, and developing, as I have said, a distinct manner
of his own.
If you insist on getting down to the bed-rock
of criticism or should one rather say skimming the
surface? by forcing on me the crude question,
"Do you like The Triumph of the Philistines?" I
fear I must answer in the negative. It is amusing in
* St. James's, May n June 19.
154 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
the superficial sense of the word rather than in that
deeper sense on which Mr. Jones himself is so fond
of insisting. There is a distinctly comic idea in the
intrusion of not only frank but rank Paganism,
personified in the French model, into the grimly
respectable atmosphere of Market-Pewbury; and as
Sally Lebrune is played with infinite spirit, gusto, and
delicacy (though the word may seem out of place) by
Miss Juliette Nesville, the scenes in which she is
engaged and she pretty well permeates the play
become highly entertaining. But a play one likes is
a play that either satisfies one's judgment or else
possesses such charm, in spite of imperfections, that
one would willingly see it again and yet again. Now
I shall have no difficulty in keeping my feet from stray-
ing in the direction of the St. James's Theatre during
the run of The Triumph of the Philistines ; it is
certainly not a play round which my thoughts linger
lovingly; and, if it satisfies my judgment at all, it is in
an oddly inverted sense which, at the risk of seeming
wantonly paradoxical, 1 shall try to explain.
What pleases me, then, in The Triumph of the
Philistines is that it is such a gloriously ill-made play.
There is not a rule of orthodox construction, there is
scarcely a canon of mere common-sense, that it does
not openly outrage. Let us look first at the technical
audacities. From the point of view of mere story-
telling, no principle is more clearly justified, or more
"TRIUMPH OF THE PHILISTINES." 155
universally admitted, than that loose ends must not be
left hanging about that a thread of interest, once
distinctly inwoven in the fabric, must not be suddenly
broken off without fulfilling any definite function.
Now, in Mr. Jones's play we have at least two such futile
threads of interest. When a gentleman, on the stage,
commits a deliberate illegality, an act for which he
could be indicted and severely punished, we reason-
ably expect to hear something more of it. Mr. Jorgan
deliberately destroys Willie Hesseltine's picture,
valued at ^200; our attention is concentrated on
the proceeding in virtue of its position at the end of
an act; we are left speculating on what is to come
of it; and, behold ! nothing comes of it at all. The
thing is a mere character-trait, a symptom of Jorgan's
madness, and as such it is not ill-conceived; but
there is no doubt that the late Monsieur Scribe would
have held Mr. Jones's method of dealing with the
matter scarcely less criminal than Mr. Jorgan's.
Then again, the genius, Willie Hesseltine, is carefully
introduced, is assigned a love-scene in the first act,
and is altogether treated with the consideration due to
a leading character; but at the beginning of the
second act he goes off to Rome, and is henceforth
" out of the saga." His function is simply to do the
artistic patter; and when Mr. Jones thinks we have
had enough of that, he is dismissed in a turn of the
hand. I am far from objecting; indeed, I think he is
156 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
better out of the way; but he himself might complain,
in the words of the baby's epitaph,
" Since so quickly I was done for,
I wonder what I was begun for '
and begun, too, on so large and handsome a scale.
And not only are single strands thus arbitrarily
broken off the whole yarn is left at a ragged end.
The curtain falls on Mile. Lebrune "springing on
Jorgan's neck," and crying, " Ah ! you are all I have
in the world ! " to the horror and amazement of the
assembled Philistines. Thus the plot, as it were,
begins all over again, and the history of morals in
Market-Pewbury is left half told. If we feel any
interest at all in the matter, we want to know whether
Mr. Jorgan did or did not continue to throw dust in
the eyes of his fellow-townsmen, did or did not come
forth from the Venusberg without a stain on his
character. Mr. Jones does not even end with a note
of interrogation, but rather with a " To be continued
in our next." Furthermore, we are supposed to take
a tender interest in a pair of lovers who have had
never a love-scene to set our interest agoing. They
are introduced to each other in the first act, and we
shrewdly suspect (for in the theatre we are all in-
veterate matchmakers) that they are 'going to fall in
love; but we have not the smallest positive evidence
of the fact before we find, in the second act, that
"TRIUMPH OF THE PHILISTINES." 157
misunderstandings have arisen, and the lady declines
to look at the gentleman. Miss Elliott Page, who
plays Mrs. Suleny, has been severely blamed for
failing to enlist our sympathies in this romance; and
indeed her performance, though charming at some
points, seemed at others to be marred by a touch
of self-consciousness. But the ineffectiveness of the
character was not her fault, but the author's. No
actress can make much of a love-part which, up to
the very last moment, is all suspicion and jealousy.
Fancy Romeo and Juliet with the love-scenes omitted,
" by special request " ! Mr. Jones, it is true, does
give us a love-scene in the first act but between the
wrong couple. In short, he has lost no opportunity of
flouting the P'rench theory of the well-made play as
wantonly as his minx-heroine flouts the British theory
of the well-made life.
And if he snaps his fingers at technical maxims, to
material probabilities he pays even less regard. It
would be idle to dwell upon the absurdity of the
whole action of the Market-Pewbury Witenagemot
with reference to Willie Hesseltine's Bacchante. That,
of course, is only Mr. Jones's fun that represents the
element of fantasy, of wilful departure from, one
might almost say allegorisation of, prosaic fact, which
belongs, and rightly belongs, to the comedy-formula
after which Mr. Jones is striving. I cannot think
that, in this case, his fantasy has been happily
158 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
inspired: his satire strikes me as ugly, shallow, and
bitter; but I recognise the intention, while regretting
the execution. It is very doubtful, on the other
hand, whether the exceeding tenuity of the intrigue
can be defended on the same grounds. The attempt
to blackmail Sir Valentine and drive him out of
Market-Pewbury is the wildest invention conceivable.
There is not an atom of evidence to connect him
with Mile. Lebrune and her frocks: and if there
were, what on earth need a man in Sir Valentine's
position care for the tittle-tattle of the market-town
that happens to lie on or near his estate ? He can
easily put himself right with the woman he loves (it
was the feebleness of his attempt to do so that some-
what strained the patience of the audience in the last
act) ; and for the rest, he can let " public feeling in
Market-Pewbury" run as high as it pleases without
giving the matter a second thought. He is neither
standing for Parliament nor ambitious of shining in
Market-Pewbury society. Mr. Jones, if I mistake
not, has more than once lamented Ibsen's preoccupa-
tion with the " parochial " poiltics of petty Norwegian
villages; but here we have him (unconsciously, no
doubt) transplanting a Norwegian village to the
English Midlands, where it simply does not exist.
In one of the small coast-towns of Norway a scandal
may very easily lead to the boycotting and practical
ruin of a Consul Bernick or a Doctor Stockmann;
"TRIUMPH OF THE PHILISTINES." 159
but when was the moral indignation of the local
tradesmen known to drive into exile an English
squire with a rent-roll of ^15,000 a year? The
thing is preposterous; it transcends the limits of
legitimate fantasy, for it no longer bears even a
fantastic relation to real life. And, if it did, I think
Mr. Jones will find, when he has perfected his
formula, that the fantastic element must not be
allowed to intrude itself, at any rate as a determining
factor, into the serious interest.
Here, then, we have a play which, intentionally
and unintentionally, transgresses all the rules, not
only of convention but of reason, for arousing and
holding the interest of an audience. Yet it does
(except for a few moments in the last act) hold the
interest of the audience very effectually. How is
this to be explained? Well, I think and this is
the "inverted sense" in which the play satisfies my
judgment I think it interests people because its
whole aim and effort is intellectual, not technical.
Through all its audacities and perversities of form,
we feel the workings of a mind which is striving to
think and utter its thought, instead of simply to pass
two hours and a half in the more or less skilful re-
telling of some empty and purposeless old story.
The play, in short, exists in and for its criticism
of life generally a somewhat eager, shallow, and
stridulous criticism, but now and then really vivacious
l6-0 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895..
and penetrating. A good play it certainly is not; by
strict rule it might even be set down as a singularly
bad play. All the more clearly does it prove that
even the British public has reached the point of
preferring a bad play which means something, to
an adroit play which means nothing. Therefore I
welcome it.
There are in reality only two acting-parts in the
play the minx and the moral madman. Of Miss
Nesville I have already spoken. Mr. Waring, as
Jorgan, made a gallant struggle with what might
have been, but was not, a great part. It was not
Mr. Waring's fault that an essentially tragic character
had to be for ever lapsing into the merely grotesque.
Can anything be more truly and deeply tragic than
the struggle between the senses and the conscience
in a narrow and fanatical nature? "That way
madness lies;" and Mr. Jones has half-recognised
the fact in the picture-stabbing and several other
touches. Perhaps he may yet draw at full length
the Puritan Jack-the-Ripper of whom he has here
given us only a hesitating sketch. The serious side
of the figure is, of course, at variance with the comic
intrigue, to which it is systematically sacrificed.
Jorgan has not that first requisite of a credible
character a consistent moral self-consciousness.
Sometimes he is the self-deceiving hypocrite, more
often the vulgar Tartuffe; so that Mr. Waring, even
THE SECOND MRS. EBBSMITH.
161
if he had more thoroughly concealed his native
refinement and assumed the grossness of the person-
age, could not possibly have made a convincing
character of him. Mr. Alexander, as Sir Valentine,
plays with grace and ease what is little more than a
walking-gentleman's part; Mr. Esmond is good in
one of the fantastic characters which are becoming
his speciality; Lady Monckton is admirable as
the worldly-wise Lady Beauboys; and the Market-
Pewbury grotesques are cleverly sketched by Mr.
James Welch, Mr. E. M. Robson, and Mr. Ernest
Hendrie. The episode of Miss Angela Soar, by the
way, should be promptly eliminated. It is childishly
cheap and conventional a piece of pre-Pickwickian
caricature.
Miss Olga Nethersole deserves all credit for a
meritorious effort to think out and embody the
character of Mrs. Ebbsmith.* But her effort is
practically nullified in fairness to author and actress
alike one is bound to speak frankly by an extreme
staginess of method, entirely foreign to the character,
and to every character of really subtle composition.
A style of acting which may be suitable enough, and
even indispensable, in "star" parts of the Sardou
and early Dumas type, is flagrantly out of place in
characters of an intellectual, rather than a specifically
emotional, order. You cannot work a hundred-ton
* See p. 76.
II
1 62 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
gun on board a torpedo-boat. In the first two acts,
Miss Nethersole's comprehension of the part was
clearer than Mrs. Patrick Campbell's. She showed
a genuine artistic spirit in "lying low" for the great
contrast when she appears, as the Duke of St.
Olpherts might put it, " unclothed and in her right
mind." Her masses of hair, bunched round her face
like George Eliot's in the well-known portrait, her
ungainly gowns, the stern gracelessness of her move-
ments and occupations, all denoted a sincere effort to
realise the author's intention, and impress us with the
eccentricities of " Mad Agnes." In the scene with
the Duke she really and rightly lapsed into her
platform manner, and " Trafalgar-squared " him to
some purpose. Mrs. Campbell had very obviously
never been on a platform in her life. Moreover,
Mrs. Campbell, by her comparative coolness, kept
herself entirely on the adversary's level, and fenced
with him as equal with equal, so that we felt it to be
a drawn battle. Miss Nethersole, by losing her self-
control, practically gave him the victory, and we
realised that she must feel the necessity of calling
up her reserve forces if she was, after all, to hold her
own. Thus the transformation-scene was much more
clearly motived, and in itself much more effective.
Miss Nethersole did actually put off the "dowdy
demagogue " and put on the beautiful woman. Mrs.
Campbell never put off the beautiful woman, and
THE SECOND MRS. EBBSMITH. 163
when the time for the transformation came, suc-
ceeded only in putting on a less becoming gown.
Briefly, then, in the first two acts Miss Nethersole
seemed to me to interpret the author's intention
more clearly than her predecessor, though already
one regretted her artificiality of method. In the
third act, unfortunately, staginess took the upper
hand, to the total destruction of the character. The
Bible scene seemed to me one of the most painful
pieces of over-acting I ever witnessed, grotesquely
disproportionate to the matter in hand, and radically
inartistic whatever the matter might have been. I
am bound to add, however, that it was much ap-
plauded. Mr. Hare, a consummate artist, is better
than ever as the Duke of St. Olpherts; but Mr.
Forbes Robertson seems to have lost all interest in
Lucas Cleeve. It is true that the part is not really
in his line; but that is a poor reason for carica-
turing it.
164 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
XXIV.
THE DEFEAT OF THE PURITANS.
The New Budget, 2yd May.
THE title of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones's new comedy,
The Triumph of the Philistines, has, I think, been
misunderstood. It has been hastily assumed that
Messrs. Jorgan, Pote, Blagg, Modlin, Skewett, Wapes,
and Corby, the civic fathers of Market-Pewbury, are
the persons indicated by the nickname; whereupon it
is acutely objected that they are not Philistines, and
that they do not triumph. Of course not; they are
Puritans, not Philistines, and they are "scored off"
every time, as Puritanism is apt to be in this much-
maligned country of ours. That is where Mr. Jones
shows his superior insight. He knows that, except
in one or two age-old strongholds, such as Sabba-
tarianism, th^ Puritans are getting the worst of it all
along the line, and the Philistines are riding rough-
shod over them. Who, then, are the Philistines in
this instance? Why, clearly Sir Valentine Fellowes,
Lady Beauboys, Mrs. Suleny, and Willie Hesseltine.
Mr. Jones is not the dupe of that blundering antithesis
between "artist" and "Philistine." He knows that
the artist-Philistine is the deadliest of his tribe
unless it be the art-patron-Philistine, with his " com-
fortable little fifteen thousand a year," as that arrant
THE DEFEAT OF THE PURITANS. 165
snob, Sir Valentine, smugly phrases it. How Mr.
Jones must marvel at our density ! He re-tells the
story of Samson and Delilah, and we must needs go
and set down Samson-Jorgan as the Philistine, and
Delilah-Lebrune as one of the Chosen People !
Heavens and earth ! where are our Bibles ? I am
sure the pagan Mrs. Ebbsmith, even before she
plucked the Bible out of the stove, could have
told us that Delilah was the Philistine, and not
Samson.
What a Philistine idea, for instance, to think of
painting a Bacchante from a pert little French gutter-
snipe, or, as Charles Lamb puts it, " one of those
little tawdry things that flirt at the tails of choruses"!
" I won't change a rag, or a ribbon, or a button of
her," cries the Philistine in velveteen, "to save an
empire from perdition !" What on earth has a
Bacchante to do with ribbons and buttons? Are
her hooks-and-eyes and safety-pins equally sacred
from change? No wonder Mr. Jones prefers to
leave to our imagination this Bacchante of the
Moulin Rouge. In what clear and masterly strokes,
too, is the Philistinism of Sir Valentine and Lady
Beauboys indicated. " Let every man do exactly as
he pleases," says Sir Valentine, ." because when he's
doing what he pleases he's doing what Nature tells
him to do, and that must be right. Why should I
set myself up to be wiser than Nature?" And, again,
1 66 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
" I've never been ashamed of being a man, or wanted
Nature to alter the whole course of her physiological
economy to suit my convenience." Could anything
be plainer than this ? It completes the picture to a
nicety, balancing against the Philistine who prates
about Art with a big A, the still more intolerable
Philistine who rants about Nature with a big N.
And this shallow, optimistic Anarchism, this com-
placent double-shuffle with three or four different
meanings of the word "nature," some of us have
actually taken for Mr. Jones's personal philosophy!
Truly, I think he has reason to complain of us.
Why should we accuse him of wantonly playing with
the flint and steel of sophistry in the powder-vaults
that underlie civilisation ?
Mark, now, the enlightened sympathy with which
he treats his Puritans, so foolishly mistaken for
Philistines. He does not dissemble their ridiculous-
ness, for Puritanism is ridiculous, and Mr. Jones is
nothing if not candid. He even goes out of his way
to show how cruelly they have been handicapped by
Sir Valentine's friend, Nature. Jorgan has a " drab
complexion, with black speckles, and stubby reddish-
brown hair." Skewett is " a little, sniffing, rasping
man, with mean, irregular features badly arranged
round a formidable, bent, broken, red beak of a
nose." Wapes is "a large, flabby, sleepy man, with
a rolling walk, bandy legs, no neck to speak of ...
THE DEFEAT OF THE PURITANS. l6/
and a very weak, wheezy, crackling voice." Corby
has "ginger whiskers, bright red hair, and a little
snub nose." Pote is a "mangy, smirking little man"
with "weak, watery eyes." Men so hideously mal-
treated by Nature may very naturally resent the yoke
of the flesh; but, in spite of all their disadvantages,
what fine, courageous, disinterested fellows Mr. Jones
shows them to be ! Here it is that the broad
humanity of the true artist makes itself felt. In
this respect, Shakespeare himself might take a lesson
from Mr. Jones. Shakespeare, the Stratford parvenu,
has nothing but contempt for the "greasy citizen,"
malodorous, cowardly, fickle, sycophantic. To Shake-
speare that one thing human was alien, perhaps
because he was in reality so closely akin to it. Mr. "
Jones is subject to no such limitation. He can do
justice to the dignity and heroism even of the lower-
middle-class Puritan.
Yes, they are noble fellows, these shopkeepers of
Market-Pewbury. Their little town is overshadowed
by a local magnate, Sir Valentine Fellowes, Bart., with
his comfortable little ;i 5,000 a year. He is, we are
told, "the chief owner of property in the town" ; he
chuckles over the prospect of raising the rent of a lady
with whose opinions he disagrees ; in short, one would
fancy that a visitor to Market-Pewbury might find
occasion to alter a single word in Burns's " Epigram
on a Visit to Inverary," and say :
1 68 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
" Whoe'er he be that sojourns here
I pity much his case,
Unless he crawl to wait upon
The Lord their God, his Grace."
But do these tradesmen cringe and crawl to their
landlord, the owner of the local "great house"?
Not a bit of it ! They are sturdily independent and
conscientiously offensive to him. They care not a
straw though he withdraws his custom and deals at
the Stores. They tell him that " the more he knows
them, the less he'll like them." They inform him, not
without a sneer, that they "expect him to set them
a pattern of moral respectability." Seeing him give
a ;io note to a young woman in whom they neither
have, nor pretend to have, the slightest interest, they
fiercely demand "an explanation." The butcher
habitually treats the baronet " very aggressively," the
upholsterer takes not the slightest trouble to upholster
his manners towards him. In short, they are models
of the free and independent Briton, and utterly
regardless of their worldly interests where principle is
at stake. They are " village Hampdens " to a man.
Note, now, their enthusiasm for the cause of
purity. They hear that in a private house there exists
a picture which led the butcher's boy, on witnessing it,
to exclaim, " Oh crikey and Jeeroosalem, ain't she a
stunner J" Thereupon they instantly "demand" to
see it, and having been permitted to do so, they
THE DEFEAT OF THE PURITANS. 169
express their intention of holding a public meeting
" to demand its instant destruction." Is not this
admirable ! They have not a shred of law or reason
on their side; they may "demand" till they are not
only "speckled" but black in the face, and no one
need pay the smallest attention to them; but they are
inflexible in the performance of what they think their
duty, though it cannot have the slightest effect beyond
the further exasperation of the lord of the manor, who
is a friend of the painter, and has, indeed, bought the
picture. Finally, one of them, the intrepid Jorgan,
actually risks incurring heavy damages, if not a turn of
the treadmill, in order to sweep the abomination from
the face of the earth. Whatever may be the cause, I
say that such heroic self-devotion ennobles it. We
may be a nation of shopkeepers; but Mr. Jones has
shown that even in Market-Pewbury the claims of the
till are sternly subordinated to those of the ideal.
And they are splendidly charitable, these narrow-
minded but large-hearted Britons. They are found-
ing a truly palatial home for the orphans of workers in
the leading industry of the town the Boot and Shoe
and Closed Uppers trade. Mr. Jorgan is himself, it
would seem, a leading employer in this industry
how grandly he recognises the duties of his position !
How different from the Gradgrind and Bounderby of
mid-century lampoons ! How he shames that arch-
Philistine Sir Valentine, who swaggers about his
170 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
^15,000 a year, and assaults a man of half his weight
who asks for a subscription to the Orphanage ! Mr.
Jones has perhaps carried his satire a little too far at
this point. Sir Valentine, in real life, would probably
salve his conscience by giving back to the Orphans
some trifle of what he has ground out of their parents
for the privilege of existing on his domain. He must
recognise, too, that Nature prompts the Orphans to
eat bread and treacle, and what Nature tells an
Orphan to do must be right. Of course he may reply
that, without prejudice to the Orphans' right to eat
bread and treacle if they can get it, his Nature prompts
him to consume other and more costly delicacies, to
which end he keeps his money in his pocket. Where-
upon it must be pointed out to him that their Nature
may one day impel the Orphans, who, after all, are in
an increasing majority, to rebel against even Mr. Jorgan's
dole of bread and treacle, and help themselves to Sir
Valentine's tit-bits. Thus society would be comfort-
ably reduced to the state of primitive savagery to
which Sir Valentine's ethical system must "naturally"
conduct us.
But after all such is the bitter worldly-wisdom of
Mr. Jones's tragi-comedy it is the Philistines that
triumph, and Puritanism, in the person of its foremost
champion, that is put to public shame. You know
the story it is as old as Samson, as old as Adam. It
is so painful and humiliating that Mr. Jones, who
THE DEFEAT OF THE PURITANS. I?[
loves not to look into "the dark places of the soul,"
prefers to treat it symbolically. He shows us no
temptation-scene, no gradual lapse from righteousness.
He symbolises all the seductions of Eve-Delilah in a
minx's wink ! " The female winked at me, and I fell "
in these eight words Mr. Jorgan might sum up his
tragedy. But if Mr. Jones spares us the details of his
fall, he is ruthless in depicting the moral and even
intellectual ruin that ensues from it. Apart from its
turpitude, did ever crazier notion enter the mind of
man than the scheme of the fallen Jorgan for passing
off his temptress upon Sir Valentine ! It is a conspiracy
to blackmail, which has not the remotest chance of
success, since there is not a particle of evidence to
support it. A Philistine Sir Valentine is, and a very
flimsy philosopher, but an imbecile he is not; and in
making Mr. Jorgan assume him to be one, Mr. Jones
subtly indicates the total degeneration of mental fibre
produced even in a noble nature by the virus of
passion. Of course the Philistine triumphs, without
turning a hair, over such a weak invention of the
enemy; and the curtain falls upon "Jorgan's face,
ghastly with terror, seen above Sally's arms, which
are tightly clasped round his neck."
" C'est Venus toute entiere a sa proie attachee."
A profoundly melancholy, infinitely suggestive drama,
filling us with an awe-stricken sense of the mystery
172 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
that enwraps the moral government of the universe.
The lips smile, but the heart is stirred to its depths.
XXV.
" FEDORA."
2gtk May.
Ax last we are in a position to form something like a
reasoned appreciation of the talent of Mrs. Patrick
Campbell. Hitherto, since her leap into fame, she
has appeared either in parts which obviously interested
her very little Dulcie Larondie and Kate Cloud
or in Mr. Pinero's undemonstrative and analytic
characters, which she created in close co-operation
with the author, making herself, as it were, a delicate
instrument under his touch. In these parts we had
no standard by which to judge her, not only because
she was the first to perform them, but because the
order of effects attainable in them was in great
measure new and unfamiliar. All we could say with
certainty was that in this peculiar style of part she
displayed a peculiar and fascinating personality. Now,
in Fedora* she has grappled with a great "acting
part " of the ordinary emotional type. We know quite
well what effects the author intended and by what
* Haymarket, May 25 July 20. Towards the end of the
run ill-health compelled Mrs. Campbell to relinquish the part,
and it was played by Mrs. Beerbohm Tree.
" FEDORA." 173
methods they are to be attained. No novelty of
subject, no intellectual interest, distracts attention
from what may be called the sheer mimetics of
the performance the realisation and expression of
Fe'dora's states of feeling. Some of us, no doubt, can
actually compare Mrs. Campbell, point by point, with
her predecessors in the character Sarah Bernhardt,
Mrs. Bernard Beere, and Eleonora Duse. This I
cannot do. I have a deplorably bad memory for
details of acting positions, business, intonations, and
so forth. Beyond the general impression produced
by these actresses, I remember nothing at all of their
performances ; and for once this obliviousness is
almost an advantage, since it assures me that, where I
dissent from Mrs. Campbell's reading of the part, I
am not simply quarrelling with her originality.
Of her great popular success there can be no doubt.
The majority of the audience was genuinely delighted,
and even the minority was conquered by her wonder-
ful physical charm. This is the first time that Mrs.
Campbell has appeared in one of those cosmopolitan
parts in which great sumptuousness of costume is
permissible. Neither Paula Tanqueray nor even the
new-gowned Agnes Ebbsmith can possibly dress like
Sarah Bernhardt in all her glory; the Princess Fedora
Romazoff can and must. From the moment of Mrs.
Campbell's first entrance it was clear that Sarah
Bernhardt had found a rival in the art of wearing
174 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
clothes. It would be difficult to imagine a more
superb picture than the Fedora of the opening scene,
her tall willowy figure divined amid the ample folds
of a flowing white garment, indescribable in my poor
masculine vocabulary. It is whispered to me that
Mrs. Campbell's gowns are by no means irreproach-
able from the expert that is to say, the feminine
point of view ; but if the art of feminine attire be
to charm the masculine sense, I can only offer my
unqualified homage to Mrs. Campbell's dressmakers.
Throughout the play, her figure, when at rest, is a
delight to the eye. Her walk, on the other hand,
cannot be called graceful; she patters rather than
sails along ; but the little suggestion of helplessness
in the movement is far from unpleasing. There is a
certain helplessness, too, a childishness, in her diction,
which, though it harmonised better with the petulance
of Paula Tanqueray than with Fedora's masculine
decision, is by no means without its charm. Mrs.
Campbell's method of voice production is defective ;
it costs her an effort to make herself audible through-
out the theatre; but her enunciation, her articu-
lation, is curiously precise and beautiful. She speaks
English almost like a highly accomplished foreigner,
perfectly familiar with the language, yet afraid to take
the slightest liberties with it. She seldom permits
herself an elision. " I'm," " it's," " you're," she will
hardly ever say; always "I am," ''it is," "you are."
FEDORA. 175
She gives to every syllable its value and more than
its value, with a tendency to make short vowels long,
and long vowels longer. Short "i," especially, she
pronounces almost like a Frenchwoman. "I do not
shreenk from heem ; " " My hand would have drawn
eetself away had he been geeltee of Vladimir's death."
One imagines that Mrs. Campbell must have had to
fight against defective articulation at the outset of her
career, and so acquired an almost laboured nicety of
utterance. The effect is not sufficiently marked to
be really foreign ; I should rather call it pleasantly
exotic. Peculiar and pretty it certainly is.
The new Fedora, then, brings to her task all possible
charms for the eye and the ear. Does she bring the
imagination which realises, and the art which ex-
presses, the intensities and complexities of emotion
through which this woman passes? The answer, it
seems to me, must, on the whole, be in the negative.
As yet one must not speak as though the possibilities
of Mrs. Campbell's art were defined and exhausted
as yet she possesses a very limited impersonative
power. So much of Fe'dora as she finds in herself
she does not fail to express; but she cannot enlarge
or transform herself. She speaks the words of the
part without a complete realisation of their emotional
groundwork, or of their theatrical possibilities. Her
intonations are never inspired by a deep identification
of herself with the character. She is always endea-
1/6 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
vouring to act Fedora; never, except perhaps in the
last scene, does she succeed in letting Fedora act
her, enter into, possess, and govern her. Even where
she finds adequate expression for the surface emotion
of a particular speech or passage, she has no power
of realising, or making us realise, the larger under-
current of emotion which is almost always present in
this character. In the first act, for example, it is
only when anxiety is the dominant feeling of the
moment that she is anxious at all. The fever of
suspense which should underlie the whole scene, and
for which the investigation of the crime serves as a
mere safety-valve, is very insufficiently indicated, or
not at all. This act, indeed, seemed to me the most
imperfectly realised of the four. Even in the opening
scene with Desire, one missed the Princess in Fedora.
She conversed with the French valet almost as with
an equal. After the dying Vladimir has been brought
home, speech after speech fell unreal and unconvincing
on the ear. "Ah, help, help! Bring me linen
water!" "Well, doctor, tell me!" "Where is the
murderer?" "No, there is nothing there" (as she
searches the drawer) in none of these phrases did
Mrs. Campbell seem to me to catch the right accent,
to speak with the true note of overmastering agitation.
Even her rage had a touch of pettiness, of scolding,
in it. The mere theatrical opportunities, too, she
missed. There is a passage where, after a vehement
" FEDORA."
177
declamation, she turns to the boy Dmitri with an
eager question, "Yes, yes his name?" Here she
entirely slurred the effect of sudden transition which
the author evidently designed. Fedora's long speech
at the window became, in Mrs. Campbell's hands,
a mere interruption to the dramatic action, a sort of
elocutionary set-piece, instead of a carrying-forward
of the tense emotion of the scene. In short I speak
for myself alone there was not a single point in the
whole act where Mrs. Campbell succeeded in making
the character and the situation real and present to me.
The second act was better, because, up to the close,
the emotions are neither so vehement nor so complex.
Some phrases Mrs. Campbell spoke admirably, such
as "That is myself," where she is telling Siriex of
Ipanoff s devotion to her. Her by-play on the sofa,
when she is waiting for Ipanoff to begin his confession,
is excellently imagined, and there are many clever
touches throughout the act. On the other hand, she
made nothing at all of the passage in which Siriex
questions her as to whether she wishes to find Ipanoff
guilty, and very little of the pretty speech, "And then
comes reason to say ' Who knows ? ' and love to say
1 What matter ? ' " by which she explains away her
outburst of horror when Loris confesses to having
killed Vladimir. In the third act, the reading of the
letters was totally unrealised and commonplace ; the
outburst, "Am I listening to the most ill-starred or
12
1/8 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
most infamous of men ? " had an air of sheer ill-
temper rather than of agonised bewilderment; and
in the phrase " Kill him, and her too ! " Mrs. Camp-
bell for once (and once only, I hasten to add) touched
the confines of the ludicrous. The flatness of the
great scene at the end of the third act was probably
not altogether Mrs. Campbell's fault. Mr. Tree is
a notoriously uncertain first-night actor, and I fancy
(though I do not absolutely know) that some slight
failure of memory on his part led to unintentional
pauses and repetitions. Whatever the reason, at all
events, the scene flagged and faltered terribly, instead
of working up to a very whirlwind of apprehension
and passion. Mrs. Campbell's fourth act was by far
her best. Her change of countenance while Siriex
was telling of the death of Valerian Ipanoff was
singularly fine, and throughout the act her facial
expression was excellent. This act, too,, is largely
a silent act for Fedora. She has only one very simple
emotion to portray a set and passive despair. Even
in her appeals to Loris at the close her hypothetical
excuses for the unknown traitress there is no need
for vehemence or conviction, for hope is dead in her.
Tigerish passion and imperious will are here replaced
by a broken, clinging, almost voiceless, desperation,
which is well within Mrs. Campbell's range. Her
death-scene, too, was handled with excellent tact, and
was highly effective.
" FEDORA."
1/9
Taking the performance all round, then, I should
say that Mrs. Campbell has not as yet either the
imagination or the executive power of an actress
of the first order. She neither lived the character
as Duse (mistakenly to my mind) attempted to do,
nor did she, like Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs. Bernard
Beere, act it "for all it was worth." She had the
discretion to attempt too little rather than too
much, and went through the play gracefully and
agreeably, now and then hitting on a just intonation,
but, as a rule, neither realising for herself nor con-
veying to us anything like the full depth and strength
of Fedora's emotions. It was the hind trying to play
the panther. The applause, it seems to me, was
due partly to the inherent strength of the situations,
mainly to the extraordinary beauty and elegance of
the actress's personality.
Mr. Tree was vivid and effective as Ipanoff (his
first entrance was admirably managed), and Mr.
Nutcombe Gould played Jean de Siriex with ease and
grace. Mrs. Bancroft's Countess Soukareff was as
delightful as ever, and was welcomed by the audience
with the enthusiasm of affection.
ISO THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
XXVI.
V
SIR HENRY IRVING.
The New Budget^ $oth May.
WE may congratulate ourselves rather than Sir Henry
Irving on his having at last won for his profession
that official honour which carries such weight in the
estimation of the British public. I remarked last
week, not altogether in earnest, and yet not wholly
in jest, that Puritanism is being beaten all along the
line. What I then said in my haste, we may now, it
appears, repeat at our leisure. Certainly Puritanism
has received no more decisive facer for many a day
than this public recognition of the worthiness and
utility of the actor's calling. In a sense, of course, it
is a personal triumph for Mr. Irving. There is about
his whole individuality a certain native distinction to
which many great actors of the past could lay no
claim. He has long been recognised as a man of
such essential and, so to speak, inward dignity that
no outward dignity could possibly misbecome him.
But we may be sure that Mr. Irving himself values
more than his personal triumph the victory gained for
his profession. It is not as an individual exception,
but simply as the foremost representative of a great
art, that he will wear for many a year (we may trust)
his well-won knighthood.
"THE PRUDE'S PROGRESS." 181
XXVII.
"THE PRUDE'S PROGRESS'' "GISMONDA."
une.
THERE are plays which matter and plays which don't;
and Messrs. Jerome and Philpott's new comedy, The
Prude's Progress* belongs conspicuously to the latter
class. To say so is not to condemn but simply to
classify it. There are bad plays that matter, and
good, or at any rate amusing, plays that don't it is
a question, not of absolute merit, but of relation to
the tendencies of theatrical life. Now Mr. Jerome's
play stands in no relation whatever to theatrical life,
and in no very definite relation to any other sort of
life. It is neither realistic nor fantastic, neither
simple nor complicated, neither old nor new. Pro-
gressive it certainly is not, nor is it precisely reaction-
ary; perhaps "moderate" would be about the word
for it. It is satirical and yet irrelevant, "up to date"
and yet an anachronism. It is comparatively enter-
taining and superlatively insignificant.
The authors tell three distinct stories two senti-
mental and one comic. Nelly Morris loves Jack
Medbury, but for the sake of her poverty-stricken
brother engages herself to the middle-aged and well-
* Comedy Theatre, May 23. Transferred to Terry's, July 29
September 14.
1 82 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
to-do Adam Cherry. But the middle-aged Adam
finds out before it is too late that she does not love
him, and nobly hands her over to his rival. That
is Story No. i. Ted Morris, the impecunious brother"
of the self-sacrificing Nelly, loves Primrose Deane
(there's a name for you ! how fragrant ! how idyllic!
how vernal !). But Primrose Deane is an heiress, so
the high-minded Ted cannot think of proposing to
her. She pretends she has lost all her money: he
falls into the trap and proposes; and, finding that he
has been duped, reluctantly consents to pocket his
pride and her fortune. That is Story No. 2. Ben
Dixon is a County Councillor and member of the
Vigilance Association which means that, from the
Jerome point of view, he is a hypocrite and scoundrel.
A philanthropic financier, he fleeces every one he
comes across : a Puritan of the straitest sect, he goes
to the Aquarium, gets drunk, and insults one of
the performers; a shining light of moral reform, he
deserts a poor wife and bigamously marries a rich
one. Being finally shown up and forced to abscond,
he is permitted by his victims to carry off the bulk of
his spoils, if only he will refund a sum of ^4000,
filched from Ted and Nelly Morris, and thereby
enable the two pairs of lovers to get married in
comfort and dignity. That is Story No. 3. If you
like this order of sentiment, this strain of satire, the
play will certainly entertain you; for the dialogue
"THE PRUDE'S PROGRESS." 183
abounds in clever touches of quasi-American humour,
and the acting is capital of its kind. Mr. Cyril
Maude's portrait of Ben Dixon is a genuine piece of
comedy; in the second Mrs. Dixon, Miss Fanny
Brough finds one of those ebullient staccato characters
in which she most rejoices; Mr. Righton makes of
Adam Cherry a pleasant Dickensish grotesque; and
the juvenile interest is fairly sustained by Miss Lena
Ashwell, Miss Ettie Williams, Mr. Arthur Playfair,
Mr. Ernest Leicester, and Mr. W. T. Lovell. At an
early stage in the proceedings, by the way, the two
last-named gentlemen make a compact of brother-
hooda Bloomsbury, not an Oxford, compact. " 1
think this occasion demands a drink," says one of
them, and they pledge their fraternity in methylated
spirit. Now, are these oaths of brotherhood really
sworn in this country and century ? I have heard a
good many oaths in my time, but never that one.
The practice is vouched for by two eminent drama-
tists, and yet I am sceptical. If Mr. Jerome wants
to make the incident plausible, I think he should
make his heroes drink the methylated spirit first, and
in considerable quantities. But, on second thoughts,
why should the authors want to make this incident
plausible? It would be quite out of keeping with
the rest of the play.
When Mr. Silas Wegg was requested to explain
the difference between the Roman Empire and the
184 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Rooshan Empire, his answer was, "That question,
sir, we will discuss when Mrs. Boffin is not present."
If you ask me wherein Gismonda, Duchess of Athens,
differs from Theodora, Empress of Constantinople,
and indeed from Fedora Romazoff or Floria Tosca,
or any other heroine of the Sardou-Sarah repertory,
I am greatly disposed to take refuge in the like
delicate evasion. The elements of all these per-
sonages (characters they cannot be called) are pre-
cisely the same languor, lust, ferocity but they
are mixed in slightly differing proportions.* It would
not be very edifying, and still less entertaining, to
determine the precise admixture of the courtesan and
the virago in the Empress and the Duchess respec-
tively. " Caesar and Pompey berry much alike," says
the burnt-cork humorist "'specially Pompey." So
* There is no escaping from Sardou he meets us at every
turn. It cannot be said that he " comes up smiling," but
vivacious and loquacious he is beyond a doubt. He has always
an anecdote to j elate an anecdote in four or five acts. Last
week it was one of his best anecdotes Fedora old, but always
entertaining. This week it is Gismonda new, so far as the
names and costumes are concerned, but distinctly one of the
poorer sort. But, good, bad, or indifferent, they are all gory,
these splendid efforts of the Gallic genius. The drip of blood
runs through them all. Some one to cajole and some one to
murder are the two necessities of artistic existence for Madame
Sarah Bernhardt ; and the Eminent Academician is her most
active purveyor of victims. Here is a little tabular statement of
the amours and homicides in which Sardou has made himself
her accomplice. It will be noticed that in Fedora, the first of
the series, the bloodshed does not actually take place on the
"GISMONDA." 185
one might say, "Theodora and Gismonda are very
much alike especially Gismonda." So far as I
remember, there is nothing in Theodora quite so
brutal and abominable as Gismonda's triumph over
the dying Zaccaria, or quite so flagrantly sensual as
her surrender to Almerio at the end of the previous
scene. (Here, by the way, Sardou Ibsenises rather
comically: the same absolute renunciation of all legal
claim which Ellida, in The Lady from the Sea, makes
the basis of a true marriage, Gismonda demands as
the condition precedent to well, to a briefer con-
tract.) But it is really of no importance to determine
the precise potency of the ingredients; the brew
in both cases is practically the same. " Here we
have all the ancient statues in their well-known
stage. Sardou had not then recognised the importance of
getting the scent of carnage over the footlights :
TITLE-PART. LOVER. VICTIM. INSTRUMENT. FINALE.
Fedora. Loris. Valerian. Letters. Suicide by
poison.
Theodora. Andreas. Marcello. Hairpin. Execution by
bowstring.
La Tosca. Mario. Scarpia. Bread-knife. Leap from
battlements.
Gismonda. Almerio. Zaccaria. Hatchet.
Other dramatists, too, realise the necessity of providing Madame
Bernhardt with something to kill, and in Izeyl, Les Rois, and
Pauline Blanchard this insatiate scalp-huntress duly adds to her
collection. As a rule, you observe, "these violent delights have
violent ends"; but Gismonda, by a pleasing exception, actually
survives the fall of the curtain. The A T cw Budget, 6th June.
1 86 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
attitudes," says the book-agent in Miss Herford's
sketch ; and to put Madame Bernhardt through her
well-known attitudes is the sole aim of Sardou's art.
The Indiscretion of the Duchess (so- the play might be
called, with apologies to Mr. Anthony Hope) fulfils
this function as well as any of its predecessors.
Indeed, it seems to me that not since La Tosca was
in its first flush of novelty have we seen Madame
Bernhardt acting with such genuine gusto and self-
abandonment as in the very passage last mentioned
her conquest of, and surrender to, her low-born
lover. The tomahawking scene, on the other hand,
produced no effect except one of disgust, which
seemed on the point of finding expression when the
curtain fell. But the magnificence of Madame Bern-
hardt's appearance in the last act, and the spectacular
novelty and splendour of the scene, restored the com-
placency of the audience, even at fifteen minutes
after midnight; so that enthusiasm may fairly be
said to have reigned throughout the evening.*
Monsieur Sardou's drama, in fact, stands shoulder
to shoulder with Mr. Jerome's comedy among the
plays which don't matter. It is much cleverer and
* In a season of four weeks (May 27 June 22) at Daly's
Theatre, Sarah Bernhardt gave thirty-one performances.
Gisinonda, produced May 27, was performed fifteen times ;
Magda, produced June 10, was performed four times ; La
Princesse Lointaine, produced June 17, was performed four
times; La Tosca five times; and La Dame aux Camelias thrice.
"GISMONDA." 187
more adroit, of course; but at the same time it is
much more pretentiously and pedantically insignifi-
cant. The story is not a bad one of its kind. It is
like a second-rate novel of Boccaccio. One can
almost see the "argument" something to this effect:
Gismonda, Duchessa d'Atene, da un suo pallafrenier
amata, lungamenfe si difende ; ma, dalla sua mag-
nanimita vinta, ultimamente moglie di lui diviene.
But the Boccaccian text unfortunately meanders like
a rivulet through wide meadows of marginal com-
mentary of the most tedious kind, so that half the
play seems to be given over to exposition and dis-
quisition. - Imagine a novel from the Decameron,
elaborately " Granger ised " with fashion-plates of the
period, and padded out with paste-and-scissor extracts
from the footnotes to Gibbon ! I confess to a grow-
ing distaste for this bogus history and Brummagem
archaeology of Monsieur Sardou's. There are just
three characters in the drama (or four, counting the
child), and just thirty on the playbill; and the odd
six-and-twenty are always strolling to the front, arrayed
regardless of expense, to talk in conventional phrases
about something that does not in the least interest
us. There is some excuse for a one-part play, when
the one part is acted by Sarah Bernhardt; but why
make a one-part play a thirty-part play? I can think
of few more unsophisticated pieces of stagecraft than
the reappearance in every scene of those four superbly-
1 88 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
arrayed suitors of the Duchess, who have nothing
whatever to do, but must needs "move all together
if they move at all." The costumes, however, are
really picturesque and striking, and the piece is
with the possible exception of Madame Sans-Gene
the most magnificently mounted French play we
have yet seen in London.
With new dances and songs, and a new comedian
in the person of Mr. John Le Hay, The Artisfs
Model has taken a new lease of life at the Lyric
Theatre.* It is not a piece that excites my personal
enthusiasm, but the public have taken to it, as I
foresaw that they would, and it has certainly the
merit of providing Miss Letty Lind with an effective
part.
XXVIII.
ELEONORA DUSE.
\ 2th June.
MANY of us must have gone with a certain sinking of
spirit to Drury Lane on Wednesday last,t wondering
* See Note, p. 42.
t Eleonora Duse gave eight performances at Drury Lane :
La Dame aux Cornelias, June 3, 8 (afternoon), and 14 ; La
Feinme de Claude, June 5 and 10 ; Cavalleria Rusticana and
La Locandiera, June 7 and 15 (afternoon) ; and Magda, June 12.
At the Savoy she gave ten performances : Magda, June 27, July
i, 6 (afternoon), 10, and 13; Cavalleria Rusticana and La
Locandiera, June 29 (afternoon), July 5 and 12 ; La Dame aux
Cam-Mas, July 3 and 8.
KLEONORA DUSE. 189
why Eleonora Duse should care to approach such a
character as Dumas' modern Messalina, La Femme
de Claude. Defect of faculty was not for a moment
to be anticipated, but rather defect of volition. This
great artist can do whatever she will, but she some-
times will not do all that she can. One does not
understand why, at the two poles of art, she should
ever essay Shakespeare's Cleopatra and Sardou's
Fe'dora, since she seems deliberately to ignore and go
aside from the particular order of effects appropriate
to each. One could not but imagine beforehand that
Dumas' Cesarine would fall into the same category
of parts foreign to her temperament, or baffling to her
intelligence, or intolerable to her moral instincts, and
therefore incapable of stimulating and inspiring her to
the height of her genius. But it is impossible to pre-
dict an artist's phases of feeling, and in this case the
actress had in store for us a magnificent confutation
of all our reasonings. Something there is in the part
of Cesarine that kindles her imagination, and she
plays it with all her body and soul. What that some-
thing can be, it is hard to say. The character is not
very human, and it is not very clear. By the author's
own confession it is "an incarnation, an essential
being, an entity." It incarnates the evil and de-
structive elements in Sex. " L'homme est faible," says
Cesarine as she spreads her toils for Antonin, " Le
paradis est toujours a perdre." There is nothing of
190 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
the New Woman in her she is not an enlightened
champion, nor even a blind avenger, of her sex. Her
maleficence is not a reaction against wrongs done
either to womanhood in general or to herself in par-
ticular. She is wicked because she is wicked, because
she is a symbol of evil. "Elle deshonore ou elle tue,
entre deux sourires ; c'est une colere de Dieu." She
has not even the intellectual distinction, the snobbery,
as some critics have called it, of a Hedda Gabler.
She has a certain cleverness, but just enough to give
effect to the base cunning of sex. Why, then, should
this character come home so strongly to Eleonora
Duse, who shrinks alike from the sensuality of Cleo-
patra and from the vulgarity of Cyprienne ? Perhaps
she feels it redeemed by its symbolic quality, by its
thorough-paced and, as it were, impersonal turpitude.
As a matter of fact, Cesarine is not vulgar; evil, in
her case, has something of the dignity of a natural
force. Perhaps, too, the great actress simply recog-
nises in the part an irresistible opportunity for pure
acting. Cesarine is acting throughout ; there is no
truth, no sincerity, no reality in her. For a moment,
perhaps, in her scene with Claude in the second act,
she may work herself up into something approaching
sincerity. Dumas has not made it quite clear whether
she does or does not really hope to turn over a new
leaf, and defeat Cantagnac by obtaining the full
pardon (even though pardon in this case would mean
ELEONORA DUSE. 19 I
complicity) of Claude. But one hardly sees how this
is possible. We are rather to suppose, I fancy, that
her husband's celebrity is what brings her back to
him. " L'impossible me tente," she says to Edmee ;
and it would afford the keenest satisfaction to her
vanity to overleap the mountainous barrier of her
past and conquer a share in her husband's brilliant
future. With that purpose she comes home, and the
intervention of Cantagnac goads her on to the effort.
She probably does not trouble herself to determine
whether, in case of success, she will make use of her
victory to save or to betray Claude. She is through-
out playing a game, and playing it with all the
resources of her nature. It is in this light, I think,
that Eleonora Duse reads the character; and never,
surely, did woman play a more brilliant game. She
is seduction, sophistry, and devouring egoism incar-
nate. Her second act, of course, contains her most
effective scenes, and was the most applauded ; but it
would be a mistake to suppose that the first was in
any way inferior to it. Touch by touch, she builds
up for us the strange, malign, enigmatic figure. That
she is physically the type of woman imagined by
Dumas we can scarcely suppose ; but she had made
for herself a sort of sultry beauty, which fell away in
moments of dejection and defeat, and left her haggard
and sere. There was irresistible witchery in her
seduction of Antonin at the beginning of the second
IQ2 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
act no mere languishing hypocrisy, but an affec-
tionate candour, a melancholy and caressing playful-
ness, which might have vanquished not only St.
Antonin but St. Antony himself. As for the great
scene with Claude in this act, it will always dwell in
my mind as one of the most marvellous pieces of
acting I ever saw. Its strength was only equalled by
its subtlety. The actress kept herself all the time
under perfect control ; there was never a touch of
strain, of rant ; yet the sheer energy of the scene
would probably have seemed extravagant in a play
that purported to present a picture of real life. We
felt, however, that in this apocalyptic drama there was
no question of preserving the tone of ordinary drawing-
room emotion. It was Dumas' aim (whether he suc-
ceeded or not) to display and anatomise the Scarlet
Woman at her highest potentiality; and it was clearly
his interpreter's business to find for this incarnate Evil
not commonplace and measured, but heroic and over-
whelming, expression. This Duse achieved with in-
comparable skill. She showed herself absolute mistress
alike of the rhetoric of speech and of the rhetoric of
sex. She carried the art of dramatic utterance to its
highest pitch to unrestricted perfectipn.
Of her other performances what need to speak?
The second, third, and fifth acts of her Marguerite
Gautier, and her Mirandolina from first to last, are
things to cure us of all foolish regrets for the past and
" HEIMAT." 193
its fabled glories. There can at no time have been
greater acting than this. It is consummate art achiev-
ing the illusion of absolute nature. I have heard of a
sapient critic who complained that there was "no
atmosphere" about Duse. If "atmosphere" means
affectation, mannerism, trickery, he was perfectly
right. Her Mirandolina, says Mr. Walkley, "repre-
sents for me the high-water mark of theatrical enjoy-
ment." I can say no more, and no less.
With the exception of that sterling character-actor
Signer Ettore Mazzanti, whose Marchese in La Locan-
diera we have come to value as an old friend, this
year's company is distinctly inferior to its predecessors.
Painfully insignificant as Armand Duval, Signer
Alfredo de Sanctis was at least passable as the god-
like Claude. Signor Dante Capelli made nothing at
all of the delightful Cavaliere di Ripafratta.
XXIX.
" HEIMAT."
1 9 th June.
SUDERMANN has been long in reaching us, but he
has come at last, and with a rush. He has achieved
a sort of triumphal entry, the two great actresses of
the time making what we used to call a "Queen's
Cushion" "Queens' Cushion" would be a more
'3
IQ4 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
appropriate reading in this context to carry him
forward into notoriety. Such a triple alliance
Germany borne aloft by France and Italy is un-
precedented in the history of the drama. Clearly
there must be something far out of the common in
the talent which can command the interest of two
such artists, one of whom has so openly flaunted her
patriotic hatred of the author's nationality. It is time
we should try to estimate and "place," provisionally
at least, the dramatist whom so rare a fortune has
befallen. There will be plenty of opportunity, later
on, to reconsider our impressions. In my case, they
are not precisely "first impressions," for I read both
Die Ehre and Sodoms Ende years ago ; but last
week's performances of Heimat (rechristened Magdd]
were my first introduction to Sudermann on the
stage.
It is a curious, though not altogether desirable,
homage to the genius of Ibsen, that the moment any
younger dramatist displays the slightest originality or
power, the critics should at once class him as a
disciple of the Norwegian master. Not English
critics alone, but European criticism as a whole.
Whenever a play is produced in Paris of which
Monsieur Sarcey does not understand a "traitre
mot " and that is by no means an infrequent occur-
rence he at once bewails the Scandinavian darkness
which has descended on the stage erst illumined by
"HEIMAT." 195
the sunny genius of Scribe. No sooner had Mr.
Pinero broken away from farce, fantastic and senti-
mental, than he was accused of Ibsenising; though in
Mrs. Tanqtieray there was no likeness at all to
Ibsen, and in Mrs. Ebbsmith only a few external
resemblances which he would probably have made
haste to remove had he himself been aware of them.
And now Sudermann, both in Germany and here, is
treated as an imitator of Ibsen, for no better reason,
that I can discover, than that he does not write
farces and does not imitate Dumas or Sardou. Far
be it from me to deny that Ibsen has given an
impulse to serious dramatic writing all the world
over. He has proved (what so much French theory
and practice had almost led us to forget) that a play
need not be a plaything, but may go to the very
depths of human character and destiny. He has
stimulated many writers, and Sudermann among the
rest; but just because his influence is so general, it is
superfluous and even misleading to dwell upon it in
particular instances. We may safely assume that no
serious dramatist who has come to the front during
the past ten years is quite unconscious of, and un-
affected by, Ibsen. He is one of the intellectual
forces of the time, an all-pervasive element in the
theatrical atmosphere. But I can find no more
evidence of imitation in Sudermann's work than in
Mr. Pinero's. On the contrary, the points of similarity
196 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
are trifling and inessential; the points of dissimilarity
are fundamental.
Sudermann, in the first place, is a steady-going
prose-writer, Ibsen is before everything a poet.
Sudermann never, Ibsen always, " has vine-leaves in
his hair." Sudermann, like Dumas, is a social satirist;
Ibsen has long ceased to concern himself with society,
and has risen to the higher ground of abstract or
universal psychology and ethics. Perhaps you think
this a paradox; it is a simple statement of fact. Half
the misconception and misrepresentation to which
Ibsen is subjected arises from our inveterate habit of
regarding him as a painter of society. We are told
that he is "suburban," that he depicts the life of
" Norwegian villages." He does nothing of the sort;
he depicts and dissects human souls, and he clothes
them in the bodies and costumes which happen to
lie readiest to his hand. Compare Helmut, for
example, with any play of Ibsen's, from A DolFs
House onwards: which is the more local, the more
closely bound down to a given place and time ? In
Ghosts, and again in Little Eyolf, Ibsen has treated
the relation of parent and child, on the plane of the
universal. When Oswald cries to his mother, " I
never asked you for life. And what sort of life have
you given me ? I won't have it. You shall take it
back again" it is not a Norwegian or a German, not
a Teuton or a Celt, that is speaking, but stricken
"H El MAT." 197
humanity protesting against the superstition that life,
under any and all conditions, is a boon to be accepted
with inexhaustible and submissive gratitude. When
Rita, in Little Eyolf, says, " I was fitted to become the
child's mother, but not to be a mother to him," she
speaks from the very heart, not, certainly of universal
womanhood, but of a particular type of womanhood
by no means peculiar to any nation or race. In
Heimat, on the other hand, we have simply a study
of the patria potestas as it is understood (if Herr
Sudermann is to be believed) in some obscure corners
of German society, where the joy of life is ground
" exceeding small " between the upper and the nether
millstones of puritanism and militarism. Such a local
and temporary phenomenon would have little interest
for Ibsen. He is neither a satirist of manners nor a
reformer of abuses. The paternal authority of Herr
Oberstlieutenant Schwartze is in his eyes a historic
curiosity, like the Inquisition or the Bastille. Time
may be trusted to sweep such stupid barbarisms into
the limbo of the thumbscrew and the slave-whip.
But there are other and subtler tyrannies, not local
or temporary, but inherent in human nature; and it
is in these that Ibsen finds the motives for his art.
There is the tyranny of passion (Little Eyolf), the
tyranny of conscience (Rosmersholm and The Master
Builder), the tyranny of egoism (Hedda Gabler\ the
tyranny of the ideal (The Wild Duck}. Far from
198 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
being the small-beer chronicler of a Norwegian parish,
Ibsen is of all modern artists the one who goes
deepest into the essence of life and is least hampered
by its accidents. Which of his leading characters
can be called, like Sudermann's Magda, a study of
a professional type? Magda is the Bohemian, the
artist, the stage queen,
" her nature all subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.''
She is vividly and vigorously drawn, and, by reason
of her very obviousness, a most effective stage figure;
but she is a creature of social conditions, of accidental
environment, differing not in degree but in kind from
those essential, elemental beings whom Ibsen conjures
up from the deeps of his brooding genius. So little
is Ibsen concerned with the study of social or pro-
fessional conditions, that he is probably the one
living dramatist who has never put upon the stage
a member of " the oldest profession in the world."
Sudermann's technique, again, is as different as pos-
sible from Ibsen's. He gets his action well within
the frame of his picture, and he writes a good,
straightforward, colloquio -rhetorical style, a little
diffuse, but not without trenchant turns of phrase
and effective pieces of cut-and-thrust dialectic. The
distinctive marks of Ibsen's manner the elaborate
retrospections, and the minutely -adjusted mosaic
"HEIMAT." 199
dialogue are entirely absent. There is only one
passage in the play that really does bring with it a
specific suggestion of Ibsen. It is Magda's answer
when the Pastor expresses regret for what he might
have been if joy had entered into his life at the right
time : " And one thing more, my friend guilt. It
is through our errors that we grow. To rise superior
to our sins is worth more than the purity you preach."
That is like a speech from one of Ibsen's early plays
The Pretenders, for example.
It is probably to the intense localism of its atmo-
sphere that we must ascribe Mr. Alexander's long
hesitation about producing Heimat. An English
audience would find it exceedingly hard to understand
or tolerate that unspeakable puritan martinet, the
Oberstlieutenant Schwartze. It is all very well to
give a fair statement of both sides of a case, but it
seems to me that Sudermann treats this wooden-
headed and wooden-hearted old snob and tyrant with
far too much consideration. Does the author quite
realise, I wonder, the abject meanness of the gallant
Colonel's position when he wrings the hand of his
daughter's seducer, who has (after seven years) been
coerced into offering her marriage, and says, " My
young friend, you have caused me great pain great
pain; but you have made prompt and manly repara-
tion. Give me your other hand as well"? And
when his " young friend " makes it a condition of the
200 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
marriage that their child shall be disowned and
kept at a distance, this charming Christian soldier
threatens to shoot his daughter because she ventures
to object ! As illustrations of domestic Bismarckism
these things may be very interesting ; but the
Colonel's Christianity is too clearly " made in Ger-
many" to come home to the sympathies of the
English public, even in the modified degree designed
by the author. N"or can I think that Herr Suder-
mann has been quite successful in adjusting the
character of Magda to the requirements of his action.
The collapse of her free-will is so instantaneous as to
be incredible. What Rebecca West would call " the
Rosmersholm view of life " seems to hypnotise her all
in a moment. It is true that, in both the French and
the Italian versions, a scene which partly accounts
for this is omitted the scene at the beginning of the
fourth act, where the Colonel tells Magda that her
obduracy will make her sister's marriage impossible.
But even then one feels that the Magda of the other
acts would reply, "It is not my fault if you make
any scandal at all; and if my sister's lover is such a
coward as to wreak my misdeeds on her, I say she
is well quit of him." Finally, the seraphic Pastor
Hefferdingk is unconvincing in the highest degree.
His whole character and function are redolent of
conventional sentimentality.
The play was well mounted and well acted all
"HEIMAT." 201
round by the French company at Daly's Theatre :*
miserably mounted and, as regards the subordinate
parts, very poorly acted by the Italian company at
Drury Lane.f But in Magda the genius of Eleonora
Duse rose to its very highest altitude, so that nothing
else mattered in the least. She illumined, trans-
figured, re-created the play. I had read it carefully
a day or two before, and I had seen Sarah Bernhardt
perform it; but I had not the remotest conception of
its possibilities until Duse threw into it the heat of
her creative imagination and the light of her incom-
parable executive power. I doubt if Sudermann
himself knows what he has written unless he has
seen Duse as Magda. It is no figure of speech, but
a literal truth, when I say that she has wiped the very
remembrance of Sarah Bernhardt out of my mind.
Yet I rejoiced to see Sarah in a human character
instead of a mere Parisian confection, and thought
her very good in her way. At two points, indeed,
she had the advantage of her rival: she made the
scene with the lady visitors more plausible, and she
realised the author's intention in Magda's first scene
with the Pastor, by bursting into a loud and ringing
laugh. Duse made a mistake in nipping her laugh in-
the bud. It is the actual echo of her merriment in
that severe abode that awakens Magda's sense of
incongruity. For the rest, I remember nothing of
* See Note, p. 186. t See Note, p. 188.
2O2 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Sarah Bernhardt's performance. It has faded from
my memory like the moon at sunrise. Yes, one thing
more I do remember the way in which she worked-
in her favourite clenched-teeth tiger-growl of fury as
she turned the recreant Keller out of doors. But
how much simpler, vivider, and more telling was the
lightning-flash of unutterable scorn with which Duse
accompanied the single exclamation "Va-te-ne!"
One almost wondered that the unfortunate Regier-
ungsrath did not physically wither and wilt before it.
The performance was from first to last a magnificent
triumph. I have seldom seen an English audience
so thoroughly carried away as was the Drury Lane
public at the end of the third act. If there was any- \
thing that criticism could fasten upon, it was a slight
tendency to overdo the pauses and protract what may
be called the inarticulate effects. But it would be
mere pedantry to introduce any jarring note into the
expression of gratitude for so high and rare an artistic
delight.
XXX.
THE RIVAL QUEENS.
The New Budget, zoth June.
THE Bernhardt-Duse controversy promises to become
a hardy annual. We cannot help ourselves we
must take sides. In the very act of refraining from
THE RIVAL QUEENS. 203
comparison, we are all the time comparing. Duse,
for example, plays Cesarine in La Femme de Claude.
It is quite possible to write about her performance
without mentioning the fact that Sarah played the
same part only last year ; but who does not see that
this sedulous silence is in reality eloquent ? If we
could praise them equally, or mingle praise and blame
in tolerably equal proportions, we should certainly
hasten to do so. Therefore, if we praise the second
Cesarine and make no mention of the first, we clearly
imply the strength of our preference, while letting it
appear as though we could not express it with reason-
able civility. Perhaps it is better, then, to accept the
situation frankly, and range ourselves without disguise
under the banner of France or of Italy.
A gentleman in the Pall Mall Gazette has " opted "
for France with no uncertain voice. The performance
of Izeyl at Daly's Theatre inspires him to declare, as
a thing beyond dispute, that Sarah possesses Genius,
while Duse and Mrs. Patrick Campbell (happily-
assorted pair !) have nothing but Talent to bless
themselves with. Why Mrs. Campbell is dragged in I
do not know, unless on the alphabetical principle
that C comes between B and D. It is unkind of the
Pall Mall gentleman to make the duel a triangular
one. Let us cancel the C, then, and inquire on what
principle " genius " can be claimed for B and denied
to D.
204 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Pray do not suppose that I am seeking to turn the
tables and strip Sarah of genius to deck her rival
withal. Sarah Bernhardt is a woman of genius if
ever there was one. She used to possess, and still
possesses in a certain measure, qualities to which
Duse can lay no claim. Beauty of feature is a matter
of taste; but stature, presence, can be measured in
inches, and here Sarah has a great advantage. The
willowy suppleness of her youth of her Fil'e de
Roland, her Berthe in Le Sphinx, and her Mistress
Clarkson in UEtrangere has given place to a queenly
dignity which makes even her Gismonda memorable
from a pictorial point of view. Duse, on the other
hand, is insignificant in figure and not naturally
graceful In such a character as Mirandolina she
assumes an exquisite Dresden-china elegance ; but it
is part of her impersonative effort, not of her funda-
mental endowment. Sarah, again, has a more evenly
beautiful voice than Duse. It was never strong
enough to carry her to the heights of tragic passion.
There were always passages in Phedre, for example, in
which she simply ranted. But within its peculiar
range, it amply merited, and still merits, the conven-
tional epithet of "golden." Then she had, and has,
an incomparable art of poetic diction. In the
aforesaid Phedre, where she does not overstrain her-
self, she speaks Racine's alexandrines with a caressing,
languorous melody that is quite indescribable, and,
THE RIVAL QUEENS. 2O5
within my experience, unique. How Duse treats
verse we have had no opportunity of judging; but
certain it is that she has not anything like Sarah's
sustained mellifluousness of delivery! There are
sharp and almost harsh notes in her voice, though
she can on occasion modulate it to the most
penetrating tenderness. On the whole, however, the
physical and vocal advantages are all on Sarah's side.
But how has she used them ? Without taste and
without conscience. She has fashioned her genius
into a money-making machine. She has got together
a repertory of showy, violent, and sanguinary parts,
and has played them eight times a week, till all true
vitality and sincerity has been ground out of her
acting. Her very voice has become a manufactured
product, unreal, unconvincing. There is not a note
in it which thrills from the heart to the heart. Her
subtle smile, her languid carriage, her nervous fevers,
her amorous transports, her frenzies of ferocity we
know them all, as her countrymen say, " like the
inside of our pocket." Her whole art has become a
marvellous, monotonous, and often vulgar virtuosity.
She is mannerism incarnate and carried to its highest
pitch. Not for ten years or more has she added a
single new effect to her arsenal of airs and graces,
tremors and tantrums. She does not dream of taking
a great piece of literature and bending her genius to
its interpretation. It is the playwright's business to
206 THEATRICAL WORLD OF- 1895.
interpret her to provide her with a new name and
new costumes in which to go through the old round
of poses and paroxysms. This is what her world-wide
public wants and can understand. Even if she had
time for such trifles as delicacy of thought and
sincerity of feeling, do you suppose they would count
for anything in "Jerusalem and Madagascar and
North and South Ameriky"? She is no longer an
artist, but an international institution. The gold of
her genius has been transmuted, by a malign alchemy,
into cast-iron.
To the great public she is still wonderful and
fascinating, and quite justly so. The marvel is,
indeed, considering how she has squandered her
gifts, that so many of them should remain, and in
such passable preservation. She has flogged and
sweated her talent to the very death ; yet it still
answers to her call. Such staying-power is unique in
theatrical history. It is worthy of scientific study and
record, as proving the indefinite adaptability of the
human frame to the conditions imposed upon it. I
do not grudge Sarah one salvo of the applause which
follows her round the world, any more than I grudge
Mr. W. G. Grace one shilling of his gallantly-earned
testimonial. They are cognate "phenomena," these
two popular characters miracles of skill, pluck, and
endurance. But to those who do not seek in the
theatre for "phenomena," infant or otherwise, there is
THE RIVAL QUEENS. 2O?
something unsatisfactory, something almost depressing,
in the Sarah of to-day. The more one admires her
genius, the more must one deplore its induration, not
to say vulgarisation. She still interests, amazes, even
thrills us ; but, for my part, I confess that Phedre is
the only character in which, for many years past, she
has given me real pleasure.
To Eleonora Duse, on the other hand the Pall
Mall's woman of talent as opposed to genius I owe
some of the very keenest delights that the theatre can
possibly afford. The past week has raised her higher
than ever in my estimation, by proving, in La Femme
de C/aude, that her art is not restricted by her
sympathies. She is quite as much at home in this
embodiment of perversity and maleficence as in the
sentimental Marguerite Gautier or the roguish Miran-
dolina. In the second act, too, she played with a
variety and vehemence of emotional expression that
touched the confines of the sublime. To an audience
most of whom did not understand her language, and
had no books to assist them, she made an essentially
dull and pedantic play not only interesting but thrill-
ing, by the sheer force and magnetism of her genius.
Pardon! The word slipped out "promiscuous-like";
but now that it is on the paper, I say with Pilate,
"What I have written, I have written." Yes; if
high inspiration, wide versatility, and consummate
accomplishment are the constituents of genius,
2O8 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Eleonora Duse is a genius indeed. The limitations
of her physical gifts only enhance the splendour of her
spiritual endowment. " A plain little woman " I have
heard her called ; and though no one who has seen
her sparkling Mirandolina can accept the former
epithet without reservation, the phrase may be taken
as representing the impression she produces on a
casual observer. " Mr. Murphy, sir," said Rogers,
"you knew Mr. Garrick. What did you think of
him?" "Well, sir, ^the stage he was a mean little
fellow; but on the stage" throwing up his hands
and eyes "oh, my great God!" Off the stage, in
the same way, Duse may be a plain little woman ;
let those who have seen her decide. On the stage
she is not plain, but exquisite ; not little, but great.
" Fortunam reverenter habet" said Johnson of his
" little Davy " ; and so we may say of Duse, Ingenium
reverenter habet. She treats her genius, not as a
freehold to be marred and wasted at pleasure, but
as a trust estate, to be assiduously and reverently
tended. She does not act merely with a set of surface
nerves which long habit has dissociated, or, so to
speak, insulated, from the real centres of sensation.
She throws her very being into her task, and while
her intelligence keeps vigilant control of every gesture
and accent, her whole physical organism responds
with sensitive alertness to the touch of her
imagination. She is more completely alive on the
"LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE." 209
stage than any one else I remember to have seen.
Even to the very finger-tips, she lives the life of the
character. Compare her Santuzza in Cavalleria
Rnsticana with her Mirandolina, and you will find
that she has not only changed her costume, her
voice and her accent, but her very temperament.
This is acting, this is great art ; and what a delight
it is to see and recognise it ! Drury Lane is not the
theatre in which such an actress can be seen to the
best advantage ; yet it is pleasant to imagine how the
greatest of the great artists who have acted within
these walls, or on that site, would hasten to claim her
as their peer.
xxxr.
"L.\ PRINCESSE LOINTAINE" "DiE EHRE."
26M June.
WITH such a beautiful title as La Princesse Lointaine*
it would need a very bad poem indeed to displease me;
and M. Edmond Rostand's poem seems to me, not
bad, but good a thing of fine imagination and deli-
cate, fantastic expression. Stevenson has somewhere
a memorable passage upon the poetry of names ; it is
apropos of the States and Territories of America,
'" which form," he says, "a chorus of sweet and most
romantic vocables." Indeed, there is nothing so
* See Note, p. 186.
210 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
lovely as a lovely name ; and M. Rostand has added
one to literature. Or did he come across it ready-
made in the Provengal treasure-house where, doubt-
less, he found the germ of his story ? It does not
matter ; he printed it on a playbill, this " sweet and
most romantic" title, and made it the world's property.
It is evident from Browning's poem, " Rudel to the
Lady of Tripoli " (there is another beautiful name for
you !), that M. Rostand did not invent the Troubadour
Prince languishing for love of a " Princesse Lointaine,"
of whom he has heard through the reports of pilgrims.
The voyage, too, with hope at the prow and passion
at the helm, may very likely be writ in the story-
books;* but the second and third acts, with the
struggle of desire against pity and remorse, are almost
certainly of the poet's own devising. Very ingenious,
delicate, and moving is the drama of these acts ; the
stuff of a spiritual tragedy is thinly disguised beneath
the whimsical bizarreries of a fairy-tale. For my part,
I find the combination singularly piquant. I suppose
there must be something defective in the style of
M. Rostand's work to account for the coolness with
which the French critics received it.
* M. Rostand writes to me : " The title is entirely of my
own invention. It does not exist in the old books. So, too,
with the details of the first act the voyage with its alternations
of hope and despair, etc. nothing of the kind is to be found in
the Proven9ale legend which I read in Nostradamus, and which,
for the rest, consists of only a few lines."
"LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE." 211
No ! there is another and much simpler explanation
of M. Sarcey's treatment of the play an explanation
which, after stating the facts, I shall leave the reader
to divine. The dying Joffroy Rudel, arrived at last at
Tripoli, but too weak to be carried ashore, sends his
sworn friend Bertrand d'Allamanon, also a troubadour,
as ambassador to his unseen lady-love, begging her to
come to him. Bertrand lands, fights his way through
the guards of the Princess's palace, kills in single com-
bat the gigantic Chevalier aux Armes Vertes, who has
been set by the Emperor to keep watch and ward
over her, and bursts, wounded and blood-stained, into
her presence. " Messire," she cries, "Ah! Qu'avez
vous a me dire ? " " Des vers !" he replies, and pours
forth the love-song of Rudel, of which here are two of
the quaint stanzas
" Car c'est chose supreme
D'aimer sans qu'on vous aime,
D'aimer toujours, quand meme,
Sans cesse,
D'une amour incertaine,
Plus noble d'etre vaine . . .
Et j'aime la lointaine
Princesse.
" Car c'est chose divine
D'aimer quand on devine,
Reve, invente, imagine
A peine. . . .
Le seul reve interesse,
Vivre sans reve, qu'est-ce?
Et j'aime la Princesse
Lointaine."
212 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Up to this 'point, according to M. Sarcey, the thing
is clear enough ; " but from this moment onwards the
author plunges deeper and deeper into a psychology
so refined and subtle that it is impossible, I will not
say to understand anything, but to find our way about
with ease. . . . Oh, how fatiguing and painful it is ! "
The facts are these : Bertrand faints from loss of
blood, and is revived by the Princess, who, taking
him for Rudel, the unseen lover whose romantic
passion has touched her imagination, finds time to
fall in love with him while he lies senseless in her
arms. When he comes to himself he declares his
mission. "You are not Rudel?" she says in effect.
"Who, then, are you?" "I am his bosom friend,"
replies Bertrand; "come to him quickly come!"
And the Princess answers " No ! " as the curtain falls
on the second act. Is there anything in this over-
refined and supersubtle? It seems to me as clear as
daylight, and admirably dramatic. At the beginning
of the third act, the Princess asks her lady-in-waiting
what can have been the reason of this perverse refusal.
"I know," replies the sagacious Sorismonde, smiling;
"you had dreamed so long of this unseen lover that
you shrank from subjecting your dream to the test of
reality." " Yes, that must have been the reason, the
only reason," says the Princess, delighted ; " and
perhaps if Bertrand pleads the cause of his friend he
may overcome my selfishness." Are you lost in the
"LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE." 213
mazes of this psychology ? It is not the first time,
surely, that we have heard of self-deception in love.
Bertrand, recalled, tells the story of his friend's devo-
tion, but Melissinde has no ears save for what con-
cerns himself. They are evidently falling deeper in
love every moment; nevertheless, Me'lissinde consents
to go to the dying Rudel, and sends Bertrand to see
if her galley is ready. When he is gone she realises
that the temptation is not to be resisted the tempta-
tion of seducing this man from his loyalty, and making
him prove the strength of his passion by sacrificing to
it the friend of his heart. " What woman is there,"
she asks, "who would not be
" Heureuse de tenir en ses bras un Oreste
Dont le Pylade nieurt, qui le sail et qui reste ! "
When Bertrand returns, she tells him she cannot go
to Rudel, for she loves another; and she has no
difficulty in making Bertrand realise who that other is.
"I am a disloyal knight!" he cries. "Your honour,"
she answers, "is safe." "No for I felt a thrill of
happiness ! " It is the old story of Lancelot loved
instead of Arthur, Tristram instead of Mark ; but here
the treachery is deeper, inasmuch as Rudel is languish-
ing to death for this Guinevere-Isolde. His death is
to be announced by the hoisting of a black sail on his
galley in the roadstead ; and Bertrand is haunted by
the dread of seeing that sail. In vain the Princess
214 THEATRICAL WORLD OV 1895.
closes the stained-glass window to shut out the view
of the harbour : they can think and talk of nothing
else than the black sail ; and presently a gust of wind
blows the casement open again. " What matter ! "
cries Melissinde. "Let us bury ourselves in the
depths of our love. No one can be happy in this
world who cannot blind himself to the open Window.
There is always on the sea the barque of some
dolorous duty, or, obstinately blotting the sunlight,
the black sail of a remorse." Yes ! they will look only
in each other's eyes, and what can they know then of
any black sail in the offing ? But through the open
casement comes the sound of voices. One fisherman
on the shore cries to another, " Look ! they have
hoisted the black sail ! " and the horror of their
cruelty has them in its grip. Now, frankly, is this
symbolism so very recondite and incomprehensible?
To me it seems no less simple and perspicuous than
dramatic. But M. Sarcey will have none of it because
you will scarcely guess the reason because we do
not see the black sail with the eye of the flesh ! It
would have been all right, he says, "if the sudden
opening of the window had revealed to the eyes of the
public some object which, by its mere appearance,
altered the face of the situation. But all these
changes take place in the souls of the two personages "
and changes in the soul have, apparently, no interest
for M. Sarcey. Such criticism fills one with some-
"LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE." 215
thing like terror. We are all fated, no doubt, to talk
a certain amount of nonsense in the course of the
day's work ; but does one often (horrible thought !)
serve it out undiluted in this wholesale fashion ? To
finish off the story, it appears that the black sail seen
by the fisherman was that of the vessel conveying to
Byzantium the defunct Chevalier aux Armes Vertes.
The fatal sign has not yet appeared on Rudel's galley,
and in a transport of compunction the Princess hurries
to his side. She soothes his dying moments, scatters
among his devoted crew the wealth which has oppressed
her, sends them off, with Bertrand at their head, to
fight for the Cross, and herself " takes the path which
leads to Mount Carmel."
Does all this seem to you very childish? For my
part, I hope I may never be sufficiently grown-up to
lose my relish for such puerilities. While M. Sarcey
declares himself baffled by the subtleties of M.
Rostand's psychology, another eminent authority,
nearer home, is outraged because the author does
not burlesque his theme, and make the Princess
"eat something, swear, or even smoke a cigarette."
Of course you know who this authority is? No, you
are wrong; it is not Mr. J. K. Jerome, but Mr.
Bernard Shaw. What I admire about his criticism
is its sublime disinterestedness. If dramatists were
to follow Mr. Shaw's advice and invariably burlesque
their ideals, his own occupation as a playwright would
2l6 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
be gone. Having invented the heroine who boxes
her housemaid's ears, he makes no attempt to take
.out a patent for her and keep her to himself, but tries
to force her upon the whole, body of playwrights,
saying, "all may grow the flower now, for all have
got the seed." This is admirably consistent socialism,
but somewhat narrow criticism. No doubt it would
be capital sport to see the Princesse Lointaine played
by Mr. Herbert Campbell in "rational dress" and
with whisky in his smelling-bottle. But M. Rostand
happened to be writing for Sarah Bernhardt; and,
moreover, what pleased his imagination in the theme
was precisely that the beautiful Princess should be
beautiful. He has not, as we have seen, made her
inhumanly good; there is a sufficient strain of per-
versity in her nature, and I fancy she is even capable
of boxing her waiting-maid's ears if there were any
occasion for it. But what seems totally to have
escaped Mr. Shaw's observation is the fact that M.
Rostand does treat his theme throughout with a
delicate, playful irony. He smiles at his "silly
Argonauts," though he does not flout and befool
them; for he knows that the nympholepts of beauty
are not wholly ridiculous, even if they should never
see their " Princesse Lointaine," or only the hem of
her garment. A genial humour plays round the
whole poem, and if Mr. Shaw will look a little more
closely into it, he will see that the author deliberately
"LA PRINCESSE.LOINTAINE." 2 I/
bids for the laughter which seemed to his critic to
threaten the- very existence of the play. Can Mr.
Shaw possibly fail to perceive that Sorismonde's
"II va mieux" and "II va mieux, je vous dis," are
intentionally comic points? I begin to wonder
whether Mr. Shaw and I were not changed at birth.
It seems to me that in relation to this piece of
essentially Celtic humour and fantasy, I am the
Irishman and he the Scot.
Madame Bernhardt chanted, or rather crooned, the
part of Melissinde to perfection. She was, in fact,
playing her own character; for what is she but the
Princess of a fairy-tale? An ordinary human being
she no longer is or can be, but just such a creature of
exquisite artifice as this Lady of Tripoli, clothed in
jewels and exhaling rhymes. She spared us her
utmost violences, relying chiefly- on her languors;
and her diction, her golden voice, gave just the right
value to the tintinnabulations of M. Rostand's verse.
Without pretending to share the delight which French-
men evidently feel in rhyme for rhyme's sake, I find
it excusable, and even enjoyable, in fastasies such as
this. M. Guitry as Bertrand looked more of a pirate
than a troubadour, but spoke his lines with conviction
and effect; and M. de Max as Rudel, the moment he
got hold of a good tirade to deliver, proved himself a
singularly robust invalid.
I have no space left in which to deal adequately
2l8 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
with Die Ehre, performed last week at Drury Lane
by the Ducal Company of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.*
Next week, after having seen Heimat in German, I
may have something to say of Sudermann in general
and these two plays in particular. In the meantime,
let me bear testimony to the solid sufficiency, rising
here and there to excellence, of the Coburg company.
The Alma of Fraulein Linden was more than ade-
quate; Herr Heimhofs Robert was forcible and
sincere, if a little heavier than was strictly necessary;
and Herr Weiss and Frau Woisch as the Father and
Mother proved themselves genuine comedians. The
star of the evening, Herr Adolf Klein, from Berlin,
played the romantic Graf Trast a character ridiculous
in itself, but so effective from the merely theatrical
point of view that it affords no test of an actor's
powers. Herr Klein has a commanding figure, a self-
possessed manner, and knows how to make simple
points with the requisite effect more it is impossible
to say from this single performance.
In The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, revived at the St.
James's,! Miss Evelyn Millard succeeds Mrs. Patrick
* This company opened at Drury Lane, June 17, in Der
Vogelhcindler. Die Ehre was produced on the iSth, and
Heimat on the 25th. The repertory was chiefly operatic.
The dramatic portion of the company was subsequently trans-
ferred to the Savoy and gave a few performances, alternating
with those of Eleonora Duse.
t June 20 July 3.
THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY. 219
Campbell as Paula. Miss Millard's first act was
singularly unsuccessful like Mrs. Campbell's on
the memorable first night of the play. Both ladies,
no doubt, were paralysed by nervousness. As the
piece went on, Miss Millard took firmer hold of the
character. She put some genuine feeling into it,
and she did not " play for the laugh " as both Mrs.
Campbell and Mrs. Kendal insisted on doing. But,
on the other hand, she forced the note a good deal at
many points, and was sometimes even stagey. On
the whole, it cannot be said that she made the
character anything like so consistent and credible as
did her predecessor.
XXXII.
THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY.
The New Budget, 27 'th June.
MAY I submit a verbal criticism to the consideration
of the Elizabethan Stage Society, which gave a per-
formance (its first, I understand) at the Burlington
Hall, on Friday* last? The playbill set forth that
" Shakspere's Comedy, Twelfth Night; or, What
You Will" was to be " Acted after the manner of
the Sixteenth Century." Now, this is obviously
inexact. The announcement ought to have read:
* June 21.
220 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
" Staged (more or less) after the manner of the
Sixteenth Century; acted after the manner of the
Nineteenth Century Amateur." Do not think that
I am quibbling and pettifogging. The distinction
is vital, though the Elizabethan Stage Society
apparently ignores it. Perhaps you never heard of
the E. S. S. ? Permit me, then, to bring you
acquainted with it. "The E. S. S.," says its pros-
pectus, " is founded to give practical effect to the
principle that Shakspere should be accorded the
build of stage for which he designed his plays. In
Shakspere's day," this document continues, " the best
work of the best men was given to the drama, showing
that the conditions which then obtained at the theatre
were peculiarly adapted to the requirements of the
dramatist. At no other period of English literature
has this been the case. A theatre specially built on
the plan of the Sixteenth Century would not be an
expensive building; besides, with no scenery, and
with no necessity to renew the costumes for every
play, the bill can be changed at little cost. A sub-
scription of one guinea constitutes membership for
the year, which dates from the foundation of the
Society to October i, 1896, and then to each follow-
ing first day of October. All interested in the work
are invited to become members."
If you are anxious "to give practical effect to the
principle" that Shakespeare should be played on
Till-: ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY. 221
an arras-hung platform, with no scenery, and with
Elizabethan costumes, make haste to send your
guineas to the Hon. Sec., Mr. Arthur Dillon,
52 Talgarth Road, West Kensington. Far be it
from me to discourage you. Elizabethanism is a
very innocent game to play at, and, as the pros-
pectus justly observes, comparatively inexpensive.
But do not flatter yourself that you are doing any
great service to Shakespeare in "according him the
build of stage" for which he wrote. Until we can
recover the build of actor he had in his mind, we are
very little advanced; and even if that were possible,
we should still be face to face with the stark im-
possibility of resuscitating the build of audience which
was accustomed to " piece out with its thoughts " the
imperfections of the naked platform whereon these
actors strutted their hour. The true end to be
aimed at is to make Shakespeare, and some dozen
or fifteen plays of his contemporaries, really live for
the modern playgoer; and this end can never be
attained by a form of representation which appeals
only to the dilettante and the enthusiast. The move-
ment is really an outcome of the spirit which regards
Shakespeare as a subject to be "worked at" rather
than a poet to be enjoyed. Let us work at him by all
means ; but, so far as the stage is concerned, at any
rate, let the whole bent of our work be towards un-
forced, unaffected, rational and national enjoyment.
222 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
With the negative tenets of the E. S. S. I heartily
agree. Shakespeare is horribly maltreated on the
modern commercial stage. We have seen, here and
there, an isolated performance of great ability, but
scarcely a single production in which expense did not
predominate over intelligence, while the reasonable
integrity and consecutiveness of the text had to yield
to the convenience of the scene-painter and the
machinist. But the mediaeval schoolmen themselves
recognised the fallacy in arguing from abuse to dis-
use. Because scenery is stupidly overdone, because
archaeology in costumes, arms, etc., is apt to run to
pedantry and ostentation, we are forcibly to put back
the clock, and, instead of refining a living art, make
hopeless efforts to revive a dead one ! For it is very
dead indeed, the art of declamation that belonged to
the rush-strewn boards of the noisy playhouses (many
of them "public" or roofless) of Shakespeare's time.
Even if we could revive it in the letter, it would
remain dead in spirit; for it would not be to our ears
what it was to the ears of the Elizabethan public.
Nothing, we may be sure, could be more unlike it
than the mild and self-conscious recitation of the
amateurs who rally to the standard of the E. S. S.
All things, of course, must have a beginning, and the
Society may hope in time to convert its amateurs into
actors. Sanguine Society ! Little does it realise the
severity of the apprenticeship that is necessary to
THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY. 22J
that end. But even supposing that here and there
an exceptional talent, combined with exceptional
diligence, attained something like real accomplish-
ment, does the Society imagine that the rare bird
would continue to twitter on its naked perch ? No !
the real actor would take to the real theatre like a duck
to water. What artist can satisfy his soul with the
meagre and factitious delights of dilettantism ?
Let me not seem ungrateful or ungracious to the
ladies and gentlemen (unnamed in the playbill) who
went through Twelfth Night on the more or less
sixteenth-century stage. The Viola was intelligent
and pleasant, the Olivia had a handsome and expres-
sive stage-face, the Maria was sprightly, the Antonio
spoke well, and the Aguecheek was really excellent.
I was particularly interested in timing the perform-
ance, to see whether they got it into the two hours so
often mentioned by Elizabethan writers. They did,
to a second. The first two acts took sixty-four
minutes, the last three fifty-six. But I must observe
that the Society did not act up to its principle of
speaking the whole text. Though Tivelfth Night is
one of the shorter plays, they omitted some 250 out
of its 2692 lines. Thirty or forty lines, perhaps,
were cut as being objectionable to modern taste; the
remainder for precisely the same reason for which Sir
Henry Irving or Mr. Daly would cut them because
they seemed unnecessary and tedious. In this re-
224 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
spect, I am more of a purist than the E. S. S. In
staging such a play as 7*welfth Night, I would delete
obscenities and a few comic passages which have lost
all meaning for modern audiences, but I would not
omit a single hemistich of Shakespeare's verse. If my
actors could not speak it so as to make it interesting,
I would e'en find other actors who could. The
Society's whole reason for existence vanishes when it
begins to flourish the blue pencil.
Here is the question in a nut-shell: Do appro-
priate scenery and costume help and stimulate the
imagination of a theatrical audience ? Emphatically,
yes ; and, on the other hand, glaring anachronism
of costume, and the absence of any sort of pictorial
background, tend to disconcert and hamper the
imagination, and to distract attention from the matter
of the play. That is my experience, and I believe
it to be the experience of every one who takes his
theatrical pleasures unaffectedly, and does not labori-
ously cultivate an aesthetic pose. Tivzlfth Night, it
must be remembered, is not a fair test case. Being
fantastic in scene and period, it may as well be acted
in Elizabethan costume as in any other; and it is one
of the plays which are least dependent on scenery.
Let the E. S. S act Julius Ccesar in Elizabethan
dress, and tell me that the effect is not ludicrous !
Let them put As You Like It on their arras-hung
platform, and tell me that the lack of the woodland
THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY. 22$
setting matters nothing ! Even in the fantastic plays,
I see no reason why, without archaeological pedantry,
a pleasant variety of costume should not be aimed at.
And as for scenery, it is quite a mistake to suppose
that the mechanism of the modern stage necessitates
a high-handed re-arrangement of the text. It is as
easy to change a scene as to draw a "traverse."
Because some managers make foolish sacrifices for
the sake of built-up " sets," I do not see that we need
abjure all pictorial pleasure to the eye and assistance
to the imagination.
The long run is at the bottom of the whole mischief.
Let the Elizabethan Stage Society subscribe, agitate,
and toil for a repertory theatre, neither managed by
an actor nor " backed " by a profit-seeking capitalist,
and I am with it, heart and soul. It is because I
think they are diverting valuable energy into a mis-
taken channel that I take up an almost hostile attitude
towards experiments which, in themselves, are harm-
less and interesting. When we have a theatre with a
constitution and an ideal, where Shakespeare's master-
pieces, comic and tragic, are on the standing repertory,
and even his less vital works are passed in review
from time to time then we may build alongside of
it a small Elizabethan Playhouse for purposes of
rehearsal and experiment. But an Elizabethan Play-
house, by itself, can never be the popular institution
we want, and may quite well attain if we go the right
15
226 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
way about it. Bare-back riding is excellent, perhaps
indispensable, practice; but it is in the saddle that
the accomplished rider " witches the world with noble
horsemanship."
XXXIII.
SUDERMANN " MlSS BROWN" "THE RAILROAD
OF LOVE."
yd July.
WHAT I said about Sudermann a week or two ago
was, I am aware, a trifle negative. To explain wherein
a writer differs from Ibsen is not to get quite at the
heart of his mystery. A demonstration, however
conclusive, that Monmouth is not Macedon, would
scarcely serve as a guide-book to Monmouth. Putting
Ibsen out of the question he really has very little to
do in this galley we want to know where the author
of Die Ehre and Heimat stands in the ordinary
dramatic movement of the day. We want to " place"
him in relation to Dumas and Sardou, to Pinero and
Jones, to his own compatriot Hauptmann in brief,
to the men who keep the theatrical ball rolling here
and elsewhere. For my part, I find it curiously
difficult to get the bearings of his talent. I feel
that I ought to admire him a great deal more than I
do. Again and again, when some instance of his
SUDERMANN.
cleverness compels intellectual recognition, I take
the temperature of my feeling towards him; but the
mercury obstinately declines to register anything like
fever-heat.
Strength he has beyond a doubt, else not even
Duse could achieve such tremendous effects in his
work; and he is by no means devoid of insight and
subtlety. He has the knack, an invaluable one, of
seizing upon themes of large significance. In Die
Ehre he shows how, under existing social conditions,
"honour" is a luxury for the rich, and, as commonly
understood, a deleterious luxury to boot. He might
have found a motto for his play in Boswell's Johnson,
under the date September 22nd, 1777, when Boswell
and his hero were together at Ashbourne : " A gentle-
man farmer said, ' A poor man has as much honour
as a rich man.' Johnson exclaimed, ' A poor man
has no honour!'" Robert and Graf Trast in the
play exactly reproduce this passage; it is the corner-
stone of the dramatic structure. The theme of
Sodoms Ende is artist-worship, the doctrine that
genius is a law unto itself, and the noxious Byronism
which is apt to result from such a doctrine. The
satire is more relevant, perhaps, in Germany than
here. Our national temperament ensures us against
wild orgies of idealism; our very language affords no
adequate equivalent for the German Schwarmerei.
Still, the subject is a good one, taken straight from
228 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
life, not from the common theatrical storehouse. In
Heimat, again, one of the great, ever-recurrent conflicts
of life is treated with a fine directness the conflict
of the old with the new, of authority with individuality,
of the parent with the child. There is no doubt,
then, that this man has the root of the matter in him.
He shows the very age and body of the time, its form
and pressure. His range of vision is more compre-
hensive than that of Dumas, for instance, or of Mr.
Pinero, so far as he has yet gone in serious drama.
He does not keep his studies all on one plane that
of upper middle-class life but sinks a shaft through
several social strata. In these three plays he has
painted in some detail five different "environments":
in Die Ehre, the plutocracy and the proletariat of a
great commercial centre; in Sodorns Ende, wealthy
Bohemianism and poverty-stricken respectability; in
Heimat, the official and military middle-class Puritan-
ism of a provincial town. More than any, perhaps,
of his French or English contemporaries, he has the
art of setting his ethical problems in pictures drawn
direct from life. And in his execution there is a
great deal that is admirable. The low-life scenes of
Die Ehre are probably the best things he has yet
done. They combine the irony of Maupassant with
the humanity of Dickens. There is nothing quite so
original in his later work; but everywhere he shows
a striking gift of dramatic rhetoric of keeping his
SUDERMANN. 22Q
dialogue true to life, yet so manipulating it as to
bring all the facets of his theme, one after another,
into sudden and brilliant prominence. Furthermore,
without exceeding reasonable limits of length, he has
the knack of getting a great deal of matter into his
plays. They are no mere dramatic skeletons, but
have plenty of flesh and blood on their bones. They
give one no sense of undue or artificial compres-
sion. Sudermann has succeeded in making himself
a dramatist without entirely renouncing the rights
and immunities of the novelist.
Why, then, does a writer of such power and
originality fail to stir one to anything like enthu-
siasm? Why does he not take a foremost place
among the interests and influences of theatrical life ?
It is four years since I read his first two plays why
(I ask myself) have I felt no inclination to say any-
thing about him, until the polyglot performances of
He:mat forced the subject upon me? Why am I
content to remain in total ignorance of his last play,
The Battle of the Butterflies, or something to that
effect ? Why does he leave me so incurious ? Some-
thing there must be lacking in him (I prefer to assume
that the want is on his side); and that something, I
am inclined to think, is distinction. Perhaps his
language is partly at fault. German is a noble
language for poetry, but German colloquial prose,
compared with French or English, is as sackcloth to
230 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
silk. This, however, is a mere expression of pre-
judice; if Sudermann's lack of distinction lay only in
his idiom, it would be mere impertinence to reproach
him with it. But I seem to find a certain common-
ness of texture in his whole method. He is obstinately
prosaic; there is no grace, no elevation, no inspiration
(if I may put it so) in his character-drawing; and,
behind his satire, one more than suspects a strain of
commonplace idealism. His technique, though in
some ways it has greatly improved since he wrote
Die Ehre, remains exceedingly obvious. In each of
his plays he has a "reasoner," whose business it is to
" moralise the spectacle " the egregious Graf Trast'
in Die Ehre y Riemann in Sodoms Ende, Pastor Heffer-
dingk in Heimat. He disguises his " reasoner " better
as time goes on ; at first sight, indeed, Pastor Hefifer-
dingk looks almost like an integral part of the play;
but, if you look into it, you will find that he is only
a piece of rather clumsy mechanism for bringing
about the requisite changes in Magda's frame of
mind changes which, after all, remain very un-
convincing. I am not sure that I do not really
prefer the splendidly sententious Trast to the smug
and seraphic Hefferdingk. The Count was a sin of
youth, the Pastor is a crime of maturity. There is
something specious about him which cleverly disguises
the essential commonness of the conception but
common it is, both from the intellectual and the
SUDERMANN. 231
technical point of view. No ! up to the date of Heimat,
Sudermann was not an artist of the first order.
He is exceedingly fortunate in his interpreters.
You may now see almost every part in Heimat played
to perfection at the Savoy Theatre; but, unfortu-
nately, you will have to go twice. If you must choose
between the German and the Italian versions, by all
means select the latter; for Duse's Magda is a thing
unique and unapproachable, a thing you may not see
again in a lifetime. I think she is a little too loud
in the scene with Schwartze in the last act; she
would get a truer effect, and, I believe, a stronger
one as well, with less expenditure of physical energy.
The fact is, she succumbs to the temptation of the
star, and takes the whole scene to herself, reducing
Schwartze's share in it to a minimum, and thus
destroying the balance and verisimilitude of the
thing. But even where she is wrong she is superbly
wrong, and where she is right she is incomparably
right and beautiful. In La Femme de Claude and
Heimat, even more than in her other performances,
Duse has once for all enlarged my conception of the
possibilities of dramatic expression. But if you can
possibly manage it, do not fail to see the German
JJeimat as well, for Herr Adolf Klein's performance
of Schwartze is as masterly in its way as Duse's
Magda. It is a really luminous piece of acting; it
throws a new light on the character and the whole
232 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
play. Herr Klein emphasises and renders convincing
what the French and Italian actors slurred the
physical infirmity of the old martinet. I never saw
on the stage a more minute and faithful pathological
study. The tremor of paralysis any one can imitate;
but this actor had seized and reproduced to perfection
the pained expression of face, the accesses of mental
confusion, when ideas and words seem to slip hope-
lessly away, the struggle to recover them, and the
resultant irritability and restlessness. And this senil-
ity went far to explain and excuse the character.
It explained, at any rate, the total lack of tact and
common sense in the old man's behaviour towards
his daughter; and it accounted in some degree,
though certainly not adequately, for the extraordinary
submissiveness with which she consented to renounce
her liberty and pass under the yoke. It was not his
strength but his weakness that cowed her not the
power, but the pathos, of his behests. One felt that
it was immoral on Magda's part, but not quite un-
natural, to succumb to this tyranny of second child-
hood. Such acting is truly creative art. The actor
becomes the collaborator of the author and in the
truest sense his interpreter. The German Magda,
Frl. Wienrich, is unfortunately very inadequate; but
Frl. Linden makes a charming Marie, Herr Heimhoff
is good as Von Keller, and the minor parts are quite
competently filled.
"THE RAILROAD OF LOVE." 233
The Strange Adventures of Miss Broivn, a farce
by Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe,
produced at the Vaudeville last week,* amused the
audience hugely, and in so far fulfilled its purposes.
It is an ingenuous attempt to run Charlie's Aunt
and The New Boy into one; but it is not nearly
so clever as either of these farces, and quite as
vulgar as both of them together. Still, as aforesaid,
it went merrily enough, thanks to the bright acting
of Miss May Palfrey and Miss Esme Beringer, and
the red wig of Mr. Frederick Kerr. Mr. Kerr's
character called for no art whatever, except that of
looking foolish a task in which he succeeded to
admiration. Mr. Lionel Brough, Mr. John Beau-
champ, and Miss Gladys Homfrey also contributed
to the success of the production.
A perfectly empty, exceedingly pleasant play is The
Railroad of Love^ with which " Augustin Daly's Com-
pany of Comedians " (as the playbill hath it) opened
their eighth season in London. An imbroglio that
would make a trivial enough single act is spun out
over four; yet so good-humoured is the whole thing,
and so clever the acting, that one does not tire of it
much. When it was acted before, at the Gaiety, I
remember speaking of Miss Rehan's "swan-like
Valentine Osprey." "Swan-like" is now scarcely
* June 20. Transferred to Terry's, October 7 still running,
t Daly's Theatre, June 25 July I.
234 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
the word; but Cousin Val is none the less charming
for being a little more opulent in her contours. Miss
Rehan seems to be in excellent form, and one looks
forward with lively anticipation to her Julia and her
Helena. Mr. Frank Worthing, though handicapped
by our reminiscences of his predecessor in the part,
makes a passable Lieutenant Everett, and Mr. James
Lewis and Mrs. Gilbert are as amiable and delightful
as ever. I don't mind confessing that I lost my
heart to Mrs. Gilbert eleven years ago, and have
never wavered in my devotion.
XXXIV.
"THE Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA" "MA
COUSINE."
lothfuly.
THE Elizabethan Stage Society should appoint Mr.
Augustin Daly its Honorary President, or confer on
him whatever most signal distinction lies in its power;
for he is unwearied in giving object-lessons in support
of its tenets. This confraternity (need I explain ?) is
of opinion that Shakespeare ought to be recited word
for word and scene for scene on a bare platform,
reproducing as nearly as possible the arras-hung stage
of the sixteenth century. Mr. Daly is apparently
"THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA." 235
of the same opinion, for he does all he can to
reduce to absurdity the opposite doctrine, which
would treat the classic drama as a mere pretext for
scenery and spectacle. He revives Shakespeare as
Medea revived ^son by cutting him up and boiling
him down. Now, I am not going to pretend that
in The Two Gentlemen of Verona* this matters very
much. The play is not an immortal masterpiece
which it is sacrilege to dismember and bedevil. One
can more easily forgive Mr. Daly all his hacking
about of The Two Gentlemen than the single enormity
(in which Sir Henry Irving preceded him) of opening
Twelfth Night with any other line than that which
strikes the keynote of the comedy : " If music be the
food of love, play on." But to forgive is one thing,
to approve another; the principle is radically false.
In itself, the earlier play suffers quite as much as the
later and greater, though, holding it in less affection,
we less keenly resent its maltreatment. Indeed, Mr.
Daly has jumbled up the scenes even more wantonly
than usual, hoping, perhaps, that we purists (how he
must despise us !) would be less on the alert in this
case than in some others. Let me give one or two
instances of the superiority of Mr. Daly's construction
to Shakespeare's.
Nothing could be simpler than the three scenes of
Shakespeare's first act, or easier to put on the stage
* Daly's, July 2 July 8.
236 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
intact. First we have a front scene, a street in
Verona, for the parting of Valentine and Proteus; it
opens and reveals a garden for the scene between
Julia and Lucetta; then the front scene closes again
(either the same exterior as before, or an interior
the localities are not defined in the Folio) for
Antonio's resolution to send his son abroad; and
Proteus's reception of his command. Note that the
garden-scene might be as elaborate as Mr. Daly's
heart could desire, and that he need by no means
stint himself of the irrelevant but gorgeously-attired
ladies whom he justly considers so decorative. One
might almost fancy that Shakespeare, in this case,
had anticipated every reasonable requirement of the
modern manager. Not a bit of it ! What did poor
dear Shakespeare know of an effective "curtain"?
It would never do to bring down your act-drop on a
carpenter-scene, and let your leading man instead of
your leading lady have the last word. Miss Rehan
must end the act, that's positive; so the three scenes
are reduced to two, the first half of Shakespeare's
Scene 3 being tagged on to Scene i, with the result
that five minutes after Valentine has taken leave of
Proteus on that very spot, Panthino speaks of him as
already at the Emperor's Court. There is also the
further happy result that the curtain falls upon Miss
Rehan speaking the conclusion of Julia's soliloquy,
with lavish gestures, straight over the footlights, as
"THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA." 237
though the line, " Now kiss, embrace, contend, do
what you will," were not addressed to the fragments
of the torn letter, but were a direct exhortation to the
audience. If Shakespeare had known his business
well enough to bring down his curtain at this point,
he would also have seen the necessity of giving Julia
a good speech to fling at the audience; therefore
(Mr. Daly no doubt argues) the actress is fully justified
in disregarding the plain sense of the passage and
converting it into meaningless claptrap. Then, the
latter half of Shakespeare's Act I., Scene 3, becomes
the beginning of Mr. Daly's Act II., Scene i, Shake-
speare's Act II., Scene 2 being added to it, so that
the parting of Proteus and Julia follows immediately
on the receipt by Proteus of his marching orders.
Here the last words of Proteus are transferred to
Julia, it being Mr. Daly's principle that Shakespeare
may think himself lucky if he gets his words spoken
at all, and must not be too particular as to who
happens to speak them. Next we have Shakespeare's
Act II., Scene i and Scene 4, run together, so that
Silvia must needs make her entrance attended by
three ladies and Thurio, who stand listening in silence
to the pretty passage between Valentine and Silvia
beginning " Madam and mistress, a thousand good-
morrows." Shakespeare, poor fellow, intended the
lovers to be alone (save for Speed, overhearing)
when the lady makes her ingeniously-veiled declara-
238 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
tion; but Mr. Daly sees no reason why she should
not make it under the very nose of her other suitor.
When he mounts Romeo and Juliet he will no doubt
bring on the Nurse and the County Paris in the
balcony scene, just in case the lovers should feel
lonely. But why protract the catalogue of Mr. Daly's
achievements ? He cannot even let the play leave
off when it is finished, but must rush to the other
end of Shakespeare's career, seize upon the epilogue
to Henry VIII., and foist it on to the Two Gentle-
men ! Beside such high-handed rearrangements, mere
excisions sink into insignificance; but Mr. Daly has
certainly not been sparing in his slashes. Many a
pretty and effective passage must go by the board in
order to make room for songs, dances, barges gliding
over moonlit waters, and other delights of that order.
In short, I must say again, as I have said before, that
Mr. Daly goes on precisely the wrong principle, in
trying how much instead of how little he can alter
the 'text of Shakespeare.
It was not to be expected that such a representa-
tion, or indeed any representation, should throw
much new light on the inherent qualities of the play.
Of all Shakespeare's works, it is perhaps the most
trivial and experimental. It exemplifies his manner
apart from his substance, and contains the rough
drafts of several scenes and characters which he
subsequently developed with great effect. Its charm
!
"THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA." 239
lies not in its "two gentlemen," but in its two ladies.
In Julia and Silvia there is really a foretaste of Shake-
speare's later, subtler, and nobler women. Valentine
and Proteus are the merest outlines, marred by reck-
less psychological inconsequences; and the wit of
the serving-men is schoolboyish beyond belief, and
often beyond understanding. In cutting witticisms
which were never witty, and which now require a
page of commentary to render them barely compre-
hensible, Mr. Daly has my fullest sympathy. Miss
Rehan's Julia is a charming performance, which
would have been more charming still had she had
Shakespeare's character instead of Mr. Daly's to study
and realise. Miss Rehan is coming more and more
to abound in her own sense, or, in other words, is
lapsing into a sort of peculiar and seductive staginess.
This is no doubt inevitable in an actress of her
personality and temperament. I record the fact; I
do not reproach her with it. She speaks her verse,
for the most part, delightfully, though she now and
then baffles the ear with inarticulate interjections,
and her phrasing is not always perfect. For instance,
she introduces a heavy monotony into the spirited
and beautiful line, "Unto a ragged, fearful-hanging
rock," by the simple process of speaking the com-
pound epithet "fearful-hanging" as though it were
two separate adjectives "fearful, hanging." At the
end of her eavesdropping scene in the fourth act, I
240 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
was astonished to hear Julia say (unless my ears
grossly deceived me),
" it hath been the longest night
That e'er I watched, and most the heaviest."
"What!" I thought, "is the American 'most/ in
the sense of 'almost,' another survival from Eliza-
bethan English? Was it, too, imported in the
Mnyflower, along with so many other reputed
Americanisms ? " Alas ! on turning to the text I
found that what Shakespeare wrote was not " most
the heaviest," but "the most heaviest." Mr. Frank
Worthing is rather a saturnine and declamatory
Proteus, Mr. John Craig, as Valentine, having much
more of the spirit of comedy in him. Mr. James
Lewis makes a quaint Launce, and Mr. Herbert
Gresham a rather monotonous Speed. Mr. Gresham's
whole art of comic expression seems to lie in opening
his eyes very wide perhaps in the effort to see the
point of Speed's jokes. Miss Maxine Elliot made
a handsome Silvia, and Miss Sibyl Carlisle a pleasant
Lucetta.
Various reasons are given to account for the lack
of enthusiasm with which Ma Cousine was received
on its first night at the Garrick.* It is said that
Madame Rejane had not recovered from the fatigues
* July I. Madame Rejane performed Ma Cousine eight
times (six nights and two. matinees), and Madame Sans-GHne
the same number of times.
"MA COUSINE." 241
of her journey, and that she was disconcerted by
modifications of Meilhac's text demanded at the last
moment by the ever-vigilant Mr. Redford. What
they can have been I am at a loss to guess. The
leopard did not seem to me to have changed his
spots at the omnipotent behest. Mr. Redford may
no doubt have whitewashed one or two of them, but
the effect was not perceptible to the naked eye; nor
can I believe that our national morals were rescued
from sudden ruin by these poor little dabs of size.
However, Mr. Redford no doubt felt it incumbent
upon him to give some sign of life, and he seems to
have done his spiriting very gently. I wonder if he
demanded a special rehearsal in order to restrain
Riquette's chahut (or whatever is the technical term)
within the limits of propriety? Be this as it may, I
do not believe that either Mr. Redford or the Atlantic
Ocean was responsible for the lukewarmness of the
public, but simply the fact that they did not under-
stand a good deal of Ma Cousine, and what they did
understand they did not much care about. To tell
the truth, I see no particular reason why we should
go into raptures over such trivial caricatures of
Parisian manners. To do so would be to take
up a curiously provincial attitude towards the " ville
lumiere." There is no ingenuity of invention in
Meilhac's play, and in the character-drawing there
is as little as may be of general humanity. The
16
242 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
thing is a satiric sketch of manners and customs
which are absolutely peculiar to a certain very limited
district in the Department of the Seine. This is
parochial art if you like; and the parish concerned
does not happen to be our parish. We have, indeed,
a certain knowledge of, and relish for, its peculiar
habits of thought and speech, and we affect a good
deal more than we really have ; but both the know-
ledge and the affectation are the result of a sort of
provincial dependency which one would like to feel
that we are outgrowing. Frenchmen do not, and we
do not expect them to, devour our Anthony Hope
or Anstey. Why should we profess an inexhaustible
relish for their Meilhac, when he is content to be
merely the small-beer chronicler of corners of
Parisian society? I have no doubt that, despite
these John Bullish sentiments, I should read Ma
Cousine with a great deal of pleasure; for wit is wit,
be it never so Parisian. But there were no books of
the play available, and I am bound to own (speaking
simply for myself) that many of the more delicate
or indelicate points in the dialogue escaped me.
As for Madame Re'jane's performance, it seemed to
me a piece of accomplished comedy, with touches of
exaggeration here and there, but otherwise quite
admirable. At the same time, there was nothing in
the creation to impress itself very deeply on the
memory, or to place the actress quite on the pinnacle
" A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM." 243
which some critics claim for her. We must see her
in a character of greater solidity than either Riquette
or Madame Sans-Gene in Porto-Riche's Amoureuse
or Ibsen's Nora before we can really estimate the
range of her talent.
XXXV.
"A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM."
PLEASURE first, duty afterwards; it is a pleasure to
thank Mr. Daly for what he has done, before
remonstrating with him for what he has left undone.
There is much very much to enjoy in his revival
of A Midsummer Night's Dream* I have seen it
twice, and I enjoyed it more the second time than
the first probably because I was prepared in advance
for the inadequacies and stupidities of the perform-
ance, and was therefore able to concentrate my
attention on its beauties. No doubt, too, the delight
of my companion on the second occasion a boy of
ten was in some degree contagious. It was better
than a pantomime to him ; and this I say without
any sort of sneer. It was better because it was
* July 9 J u ty 2 7- Nancy & Co. was presented on July 29
and 30, and the season closed on July 31 with The TTJO Gentle-
men of Verona.
244 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
fundamentally beautiful. Had the poem been simply
vulgarised, I should have been very careful not to
let him see it. He clearly felt, though he could not
have explained, the difference between this har-
moniously-developed fable and the travestied nursery-
tales of Christmastide, between these exquisite verses
(some of them beautifully spoken) and the doggerel
patter of the pantomime librettist. What was vulgar
and pantomimic in the production pleased him less
than the rest, or not at all. Mr. Clarke's Theseus
he could not away with ; the pantomime mask which
Mr. Daly has substituted for the elfin Mustard-seed
simply puzzled him in its incongruity; and his remark
on the famous "panoramic illusion" was, "It only
makes you dizzy." Now the public, I take it, is in
these matters simply a child of larger growth : it feels
a. great deal that it cannot explain or express, even
to itself. Mr. Daly regards us critics as a set of
visionary, if not malicious, pedants, because we
worry over his cuts and transpositions, and are careful
and cumbered about syllables and accents. "What
does the public know or care about these things?"
he asks. " If I cut half-a-dozen lines here and there,
who misses them? Not one person in a hundred.
And if a syllable or two is omitted or inserted in a
blank verse line, do you suppose that the public
notices it ? " In these cases, it is true, only a small
percentage of any given audience knows what is
"A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM." 245
wrong, or is even clearly conscious that there is
anything wrong at all ; but it does not therefore
follow that, even from the practical, managerial,
dollars-and-cents point of view, the errors are not
worth putting right. The manager's aim is, and
must be, to give the largest possible sum of pleasure
to his audience; and if he cuts or maltreats a
beautiful passage which would have given pleasure,
he in so far diminishes that sum, even though not
one of his audience may distinctly realise the loss.
The resultant impression of such a performance is
made up of an innumerable host of small sensations.
Every line, to carry the analysis no further, may, or
rather must, produce in the hearer one of three
conditions : satisfaction, indifference, or dissatisfaction.
Now, Mr. Daly will surely admit that a line spoken
as Shakespeare wrote it has a better chance of
making the needle veer towards u Satisfaction " than
one stupidly or carelessly misspoken. If it be
delivered with grace and feeling, it will send the
mental indicator of those who are sensitive to these
things flying to the extreme of " Satisfaction " to
delight and it will give a vague pleasure even to
the unskilful. Misspoken, on the other hand, it will
at best leave the indicator at " Indifference " in the
unskilful, while in those who know (and, after all,
there are some people with an ear for verse in every
audience) it will deflect the needle more or less
246 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
violently on the side of " Dissatisfaction," not to say
disgust. This is not a matter in which, by pleasing
the few, you run the risk of displeasing the many.
No one actively prefers a bad line to a good, though
many may not see the difference or may be unable
to explain it. For instance, when Mr. Daly suffers
Mr. George Clarke to say, "The poet's eye, in fine
frenzy rolling," not a soul in the audience is pleased,
while many are tortured, by the omission of the single
letter "a." For my part, it makes my hand steal
towards my pistol-pocket ; for I feel that, unlike the
musician at whom the Western audience was requested
not to shoot, the actor is not " doing his best." If
he does not know the difference between verse
and prose, he might at least mechanically memorise
the plain words of his part. And let not Mr. Daly
think this a trifling matter. That single inexcusable
blunder might quite well prove the last straw to a
sensitive playgoer, and send him away with a general
impression of dissatisfaction which, spreading among
his friends and acquaintances, would keep out of the
treasury an indefinite number of half-crowns and half-
sovereigns.
On the whole, Mr. Daly has dealt not ungently
with A Midsummer Nighfs Dream. His trans-
positions are inessential, and his excisions are not so
inhuman as they are apt to be. In the main, he lets
Shakespeare tell his story in his own way ; and that
"A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM." 247
is all we ask. But though Mr. Daly has not been so
truculent in his slashing as he sometimes is, many
priceless lines and passages have fallen before his
blue pencil. There is much in a name, and Daly is
fatally suggestive of Dele. How could he find it in
his heart, for instance, to mutilate this passage :
Lysander. Ah, me ! for ought that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth :
But, either it was different in blood ;
Hcnnia. O cross ! too high to be enthrall'd to low !
Lys. Or else misgraffed, in respect of years ;
Her. O spite ! too old to be engag'd to young !
Lys. ' Or else it stood upon the choice of friends :
Her. ' O hell ! to choose love by another's eye !
Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it.
Will it be believed that Mr. Daly cuts all these
silver-sweet antiphonies, making Lysander say,
"The course of true love never did run smooth.
For, if there were a sympathy in choice," etc. ? A
little further on Hermia is robbed of the lines printed
in inverted commas :
I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow ;
' By his best arrow with the golden head ;
' By the simplicity of Venus' doves ; '
By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves ;
' And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
' When the false Troyan under sail was seen. '
248 ' THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
I presume it is from motives of delicacy that this
speech of Oberon's is docked of its last four lines, the
most magnificent in the whole play-:
"How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus ?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished ?
And make him with fair ALgle break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa ? "
Immediately after, the whole of Titania's description
of the rains and floods disappears without a trace
an excrescence on the play, no doubt, but a curious
and beautiful one. True, it would have needed an
actress to speak it. There is more justification for
some (but not for all) of the deletions in the lovers'
quarrelling scenes. Passages so " conceited " in style
as to baffle the comprehension of a modern audience
may fairly be omitted ; but this principle does not
apply to Helena's
"We, Hermia, like to artificial gods,
Have with our neelds created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion," etc.
At a low estimate, I should say that two-thirds of
Mr. Daly's cuts are quite unnecessary, while of these,
again, a full third is positively detrimental. In several
briefer passages, he makes unaccountable havoc of
the text. For instance, where Shakespeare wrote :
"A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM." " 249
"Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'd give to be to you translated,"
Mr. Daly makes Miss Rehan say :
" Were the world mine, it would I give
To be to you transformed."
Where the original texts mar the metre, Mr. Daly at
once becomes a purist. He will have Oberon say,
"Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine," reject-
ing Theobald's obvious and beautiful conjecture of
lush. Countless are the places in which he suffers
his actors to ignore the accentuation obviously
demanded by the measure. For instance: Hermia.
" It stands as an edict in destiny " (it should, of
course, be "edict"). Puck. "She never had so sweet
a chanjling" (instead of the trisyllable, "changeling").
Hermia. " Lysander ! What ! removed ! Lysander !
Lord!" (instead of "remov'd"---as, indeed, it is
printed in the Folio). In both places where the
name of Philostrate occurs, the metre makes it
abundantly evident that Shakespeare pronounced it
Philostrait ; in both places Mr. Daly must needs
have it Philbstratee. Lysander says to Helena,
"Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us," thus
ruining the line and disguising the rhyme with the
following line, " And good luck grant thee thy
Demetrius." Even in the "tedious brief scene"
of Pyramus and Thisbe it would surely be worth
250 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
while to let Wall say, what Shakespeare indisputably
intended :
" And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper,"
instead of accenting "sinister" on the first syllable,
according to modern usage. These, to be sure, are
small matters; but it is as easy to be right as wrong,
and every wrong accentuation, while it gives no satis-
faction to any one, inflicts on many a very appreciable
dissatisfaction. And in no case, observe, have I
noted a mere momentary slip of the tongue on the
actor's part. These are all, so to speak, rehearsed
errors, for which Mr. Daly is responsible. I am
willing to believe that it was by a slip of the tongue
that Mr. Clarke, the other night, said, "The lover,
the lunatic, and the poet," instead of "The lunatic,
the lover," etc.; but such slips would be impossible
to any one with the slightest ear for verse.
With the exception of the "panoramic illusion of
the passage of the Barge of Theseus to Athens," the
mounting was passable. The Pompeiian interior of
the first act was a trifle garish, and the caryatids of
the last act seemed somewhat elephantine; but the
forest scene was really pretty and tasteful. The
"panoramic illusion " was justly jeered at by the first-
night gallery. An ambidextrous barge (propelled,
that is to say, by a motionless steering-oar at bow and
stern alike) was seen threading its way, obviously on
"A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM." 251
dry land, through an epileptic forest, jerked spas-
modically along like a freight-train in the act of
shunting. And for the sake of this childish and
contemptible effect, Theseus and Hippolyta were
made to perform a sort of egg-dance among the
sleeping lovers, pretending not to see them until the
cue came for recovering their eyesight. Mr. Daly is
the only person illuded by this "panoramic illusion."
In the fairy-scenes, again, the disorderly and meaning-
less flashing and fading of the electric lamps in the
fairies' wands and hair seemed to me far more dis-
turbing than pretty. Surely these scintillations should
be subjected to some rule, however fantastic or con-
ventional. We instinctively look for some " natural
law in the spiritual world." Beings who have this
faculty of luminance must be conceived to employ
it to some end, probably of emotional expression.
Either the jewels should glow continuously, or, if
they flash and fade, they should do so, not higgledy-
piggledy, but with meaning and appropriateness
pulsing, not merely fluttering. As it is, when Oberon
says, "I am invisible," he seizes the opportunity to
blaze forth like the Eddystone light. If the trick had
been reversed if the Faery King had been radiant
throughout the scene, and then suddenly eclipsed his
fires one could have applauded Mr. Daly's ingenuity.
At the very least, when the fairies are singing Titania's
lullaby, their phosphorescence might surely follow the
252 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
rhythm of the song instead of flitting and flickering in
chaotic discordance.
Where Mr. Daly gives her unmutilated lines to
speak, Miss Rehan, as Helena, croons her verses
very beautifully. She makes a noble and memorable
figure. The one thing I regret in her performance is
a sudden lapse into schoolgirl Americanism at the
line, " Nor longer stay in your curst company." Miss
Maxine Elliott, too, as Hermia, looks singularly hand-
some, and speaks with intelligence and feeling. Mr.
Frank Worthing and Mr. John Craig play Demetrius
and Lysander quite creditably, though Mr. Worthing
is a little careless of his words. It is really cruel of
Mr. Daly to cast Mr. George Clarke for Theseus.
He was ludicrous enough as Richard Coeur de Lion;
under the huge helmet and in the cherry-coloured
cloak of Theseus he is simply grotesque. Of his
treatment of the text I have already given some
specimens. Mr. Tyrone Power is good as Egeus,
in spite of his Father-Christmas-like make-up. Miss
Sibyl Carlisle makes a graceful and fairly intelligent
Oberon; but Titania and Hippolyta simply cease to
exist in the hands of Miss Percy Haswell and Miss
Leontine. Miss Lillian Swain, as Puck, is con-
ventional and nothing more. The clowning of the
Athenian amateurs has at least the merit of being
irresistibly funny. Mr. James Lewis as Bottom is
mercurial rather than stolid; but, after all, there is
"ALL ABROAD." 253
nothing in the text to exclude this reading of the
character. Nevertheless, I cannot think him so con-
summate in this part as he was in Sir Toby Belch.
XXXVI.
"ALL ABROAD" " QWONG Hi."
14 th August.
FOUR persons, according to the playbill, are impli-
cated in the confection of All Abroad, successfully
produced at the Criterion last Thursday.* The piece
is "by Owen Hall and James T. Tanner"; and under-
neath we read, in much smaller letters, " Music by
Fredk. Rosse. Lyrics by W. H. Risque." In the
theatrical world, credit and cash are commonly appor-
tioned in accordance with the size of type in which a
man's name appears in the bills, so that Messrs. Owen
Hall and James T. Tanner probably carry off not
only the laurels but the lion's share of the emolu-
ments arising from All Abroad. If this be so, they
profit by an inveterate superstition, or rather by a
false classification. The piece is called a " musical
farce," and because "farce" is the substantive,
" musical " the adjective, it is assumed that the plot
* August 7 November 2. Revived at Court Theatre, Jan-
uary 2, 1896.
254 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
and dialogue form the substance of the show, the
songs being a mere embellishment. Reverse the
parts of speech and with them the emphasis, call the
piece a " farcical operetta," and at once the haughty
and majuscular "authors" would sink into the humble
and small-typed "librettists" and librettists, more-
over, who do not write their own rhymes. This is
the true proportion in the division of labour. The
success of the production lies entirely in the rhymes
and jingles "music" is too large a word for this
context in the pretty faces of the ladies, and the
clowning of the comedians. The "authors," in the
present instance, have furnished the title and the
tedium, and very little more. "What !" they will no
doubt protest, "have we not invented the melo-
maniac solicitor, and the ward in Chancery, and the
cafe-chant ant divette who turns out to be her long-lost
sister, and the tuneful tar who marries the ward in
Chancery, and the effervescent champagne-brewer,
and the dwarf office-boy whose antics the audience
found so agreeable ? Have we not, in the course of
arduous literary researches, exhumed from a forgotten
romance of antiquity the idea of the amorous attorney
who dyes his hair green ? Have we not lavishly be-
gemmed the dialogue with such sparkling facetia; as
these: ' She has gone for a ride on a bicycle.' 'On
a what, sir?' 'No, not on a whatsir, on a bicycle.
It is india-rubber tyred.' ' I don't care how tired it
"ALL ABROAD." 255
is'? All this, and more besides, we have done; and
yet you tell us we have furnished only the title and
the tedium !" Precisely; I said the tedium. And,
mark you, not for me alone, but for the audience at
large. No human soul takes the slightest interest
in the plot, the characters, or the situations of All
Abroad, Why, the authors themselves (and small
blame to them !) are perpetually losing the thread of
the story and picking it up again the same thread
or another, it matters not after twenty minutes or so
of sheer irrelevance. The so-called play is only the
rough canvas on which the really attractive features of
the entertainment are elaborately embroidered, by the
song-writer, composer, costumier, stage-manager, and
comedians. This canvas any one could provide
any one, that is to say, who could sufficiently divest
his mind of all misplaced hankerings after wit,
coherence, or comic originality.
A curious fatality besets the modern English stage.
Every now and then, a more or less novel and
interesting style of play is evolved, imperfect and
tentative enough, yet seeming to contain the possi-
bilities, and even the promise, of better things. We
hail such appearances with delight, and look eagerly
for the development of the new art-form. Alas ! it
invariably makes haste to develop backwards ; it
withers before it has bloomed; it shows a marvellous
alacrity in sinking. Planche started a gay and grace-
256 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
ful form of extravaganza; it degenerated the moment
it left his hands, to end ingloriously in three-act
Gaiety burlesque and the vulgarities of spectacular
pantomime. Robertsonian comedy- was an invention
in its way; but as M. Auguste Filon has just been
reminding us in his singularly well-informed articles
in the Revue des Deux Mondes it culminated during
Robertson's own brief day of success, and then
dwindled into puerility and ineptitude. Some twelve
or fifteen years ago, Mr. Sims and Mr. Jones seemed
for a moment to have put new life into popular
drama. If they, or other writers, had gradually
dropped the mechanical and conventional parts of
The Lights d* London and The Silver King, and
worked steadily along the line of observation, humour
and character-study, they would have arrived in time
at the unpretending but really artistic "folk-play"
which is the most popular form of drama in Germany
and, I believe, in America. Mr. Jones did, indeed,
make one or two efforts in that direction (for ex-
ample, The Middleman}, but presently devoted
himself entirely to society drama; while Mr. Sims
lost no time in joining hands with the practitioners
of East-end melodrama, and glissading down into
the depths of mechanical stage-carpentry. Then,
again, the Gilbert and Sullivan movement has ended
(for the present) where it began in Gilbert and
Sullivan. They have had plenty of inferior imitators,
"ALL ABROAD." 257
but neither they themselves nor other writers have
made Pinafore and Patience the stepping-stones to
higher things. And finally, to return to the immediate
matter in hand, the " musical comedy " form which
began with In Town, and seemed to offer such
illimitable opportunities for fantasy, satire and sportive
criticism of life, has gone steadily downwards instead
of upwards, until it has sunk into the meaningless
tomfoolery of All Abroad. What is the malign force
that checks every fresh impetus in English theatrical
life, drags down every aspiration, and, when the time
is ripe for an Aristophanes, gives us instead a James
T. Tanner and Owen Hall? What have we done
that we should be smitten with intellectual barren-
ness ? It was not always thus. The Elizabethan
drama did not rush helter-skelter downhill from Mar-
lowe, the Restoration comedy did not sullenly decline
from Etherege. The impetus given in Tamburlaine
culminated in Lear, and died away gloriously in The
Duchess of Malfy and The Broken Heart. Love in a
Tub was only the precursor of Love for Love and The
beaux' Stratagem. What is it that in these days seems
to paralyse at the outset every stirring of new life ? Or is
it only our impatience that leads us to take momentary
deflections for permanent aberrations, and blinds us to
the true curve of development ? That is just the ques-
tion. If we could answer it, we should know whether
there is really any artistic future for the English stage.
258 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
In one respect, however, the Gilbert impulse has
not been entirely resultless: it has permanently raised
the standard of stage versification. No one nowadays
dares to come forward with the unspeakable balder-
dash which passed for verse during the Byron-
Reece-Farnie period. I shall never forget Mr. Lionel
Brough in Bhie Beard (an amusing burlesque in
its day) singing a song which ended with this lovely
quatrain :
" For it is just as poets sing,
You can't have too much of a good thing ;
And they do say it is good to wed
So now no more at present on that head."
This is a perfectly fair specimen of the wit and metre
that passed current twenty years ago, when (it must
be said in extenuation) librettists had very often to
fit their words to pre-existent French airs, utterly
irreconcilable with English rhythms. Mr. Gilbert has
changed all that. The English librettist now writes
stanzas of regular and sometimes very ingenious form,
which he hands to the composer for musical treat-
ment. This is the rational order of things, and we
have already quite a little group, headed by Mr.
Gilbert himself and Mr. "Adrian Ross," of clever,
and sometimes brilliant, verse-writers for the stage.
Mr. W. H. Risque, the poet of All Abroad, is not
brilliant but decidedly clever. With a better book to
inspire him, he would no doubt do better work; as it
"QWONG HI." 259
is, his lyrics are gay and tripping enough, though here
and there rather too music-hally in tone. Mr. F.
Rosse's music seemed to me even thinner than usual in
such productions, but there was a certain swing about
several numbers that caught the fancy of the audience.
The company was not vocally strong, though Mr.
John Coates, as the sailor lover, sang with ease and
effect. Miss Ada Reeve and Miss Kate Cutler played
the sister heroines very pleasantly. Miss Reeve has
a curious wire-thread of a voice one can scarcely
call it gold or even silver wire but uses it with such
vivacity that the audience does not trouble about its
tone. Mr. Charles E. Stevens and Mr. Horace Mills,
as the two idiot solicitors, prove themselves capable
low-comedians; and Mr. De Lange manages to intro-
duce one or two clever touches into the part of the
champagne-manufacturer.
The most amusing figure in the old burlesque of
Blue Beard above alluded to was the Heathen
Chinee of Mr. Willie Edouin. It has often been
suggested that, though the burlesque is dead beyond
possibility of revival, Ah Sin might be revived in
another play. Mr. Fenton Mackay has acted upon
this suggestion, and made the Heathen Chinee, re-
christened Qwong Hi, the central figure of a farce of
that name.* The farce, unfortunately, is in itself
utterly vapid, and there is very little humour or
* Avenue Theatre, July 27 August 17.
260 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
ingenuity in the situations in which Qwong Hi is
involved. Nevertheless, the quaintness of Mr.
Edouin's performance keeps the audience fairly
amused. The " Hong Kong heiress," to whom
Qwong Hi acts as nurse, is played by Miss May
Edouin, a vivacious young lady, whose bent would
seem to be towards the music-hall rather than the
stage.
XXXVII.
"A YOUNGSTER'S ADVENTURE" "NEW YORK
DIVORCE."
28/7* August.
THE interim management at the Strand Theatre
may boast of having established two " records " the
record of ineptitude in comedietta and of vulgarity in
farce.* The author of A Youngster's Adventure, Mr.
John S. Clarke, is a popular comedian and, I presume,
a successful manager; with these distinctions he ought
to be content. He writes like a sentimental school-
boy, and a schoolboy who has not even the instinct
to choose good models for imitation. The farce,
entitled New York Divorce, is "based on the French,"
by an anonymous author. It seems to be a farrago
of three or four French vaudevilles so jumbled up as
* August 19 September n.
"THE SWORDSMAN'S DAUGHTER." 261
to make the story totally incomprehensible which is,
indeed, an extenuating circumstance. It belongs to
the lowest order of dramatic entertainment; but the
first-night audience laughed at it, and critics, I under-
stand, have been found to praise it. The acting was,
fortunately, better than the play. Mr. Wilfred Clarke
showed a good deal of comic energy and conviction,
Miss Marie Hudspeth was very bright, and Mr.
Oswald Yorke played with ease and intelligence.
XXXVIII.
"THE SWORDSMAN'S DAUGHTER."
4fth September.
WHEN Le Mattre d 1 Amies, by MM. Jules Mary and
Georges Grisier, was produced in Paris in October
1892, Francisque Sarcey took the authors gravely to
task in the name of " Aristotle and common-sense."
What Aristotle had to do in that galley (or common-
sense either, for the matter of that) is not very
apparent; but M. Sarcey's objection to the play is
sufficiently curious to merit a little examination. He
found in it an example of the modern and reprehen-
sible tendency to present " slices of life " rather than
constructed and developed dramas; and especially he
reproached the authors with deliberately omitting the
scene afaire. A young lady is seduced, he says, and,
262 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
for the sake of her child, implores her betrayer to
keep his promise of marriage. He renews the promise,
without the slightest intention of fulfilling it, and goes
on board his yacht in order to make his escape. She
discovers his purpose, and follows him on board the
yacht. "What is the scene," asks M. Sarcey and
here I translate literally "which you expect, you,
the public ? It is the scene between the abandoned
fair one and her seducer. The author may make it
in a hundred ways, but make it he must !" Instead
of which, the critic proceeds, we are fobbed off with
a storm-scene, a rescue, and other sensational inci-
dents, and hear no word of what passes between
the villain and his victim.
All this remains practically unaltered in The
Swordsman's .Daughter, by Messrs. Brandon Thomas
and Clement Scott, produced last Saturday at the
Adelphi;* so that we can give a direct answer to
M. Sarcey's appeal to the public. It is not at all the
answer which M. Sarcey puts in our mouths. Words
cannot express our unconcern as to what passes
between the heroine and the villain on board the
yacht nay, more, our gratitude for being spared that
painful and threadbare scene of recrimination. We
know it all beforehand; we have heard it a hundred
times ; and we warmly applaud the discretion which
compresses all that is needful for the purposes of the
* August 31 November 30.
"THE SWORDSMAN'S DAUGHTER." 263
story into a few hurried words in the second act.
The plot demands, observe, that the villain shall not
relent. We know quite well that he cannot, for if he
did the play would fall to pieces. Why, then, should
we " expect " or demand a sordid squabble which can
lead to nothing? The storm-scene may or may not
be a " slice of life," but it is fifty times more interest-
ing than the scene for which M. Sarcey yearns. It,
too, leads to nothing; if it were to be casually
omitted one evening no one would miss it; and on
that account (among others) Aristotle would scarcely
approve of The Swordsman's Daughter. Its plot is
of the "episodic" order which he expressly condemns.
But I doubt whether Aristotle would have liked the
play much better if M. Sarcey had had his way, and
I am sure the Adelphi audience would have liked it a
great deal worse. The moral, therefore, seems to be
that in this class of play the drama, if one may call
it so, of foregone character the scene a faire is pre-
cisely the scene to be avoided. It is so obvious, and
has been done so often before, that even the least
sophisticated audience is heartily sick of it. In the
present instance, indeed, I think M. Sarcey is mis-
taken in the application of his own principles. I
doubt whether the scene he clamours for is in even
the most conventional sense the scene a faire. But if
it clearly and unmistakably fulfilled M. Sarcey's defini-
tion, we should none the less beg to be spared it.
264 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
The interest of a really dramatic scene lies in the
unfolding of character, or the ingenious and unfore-
seen development of a situation. Now, in plays of
this class there is no character to be unfolded, and it
is almost impossible to hit on an ingenious and un-
foreseen development of situation within the narrow
limits prescribed by the tastes and prejudices of a
"popular" audience. Therefore, the purveyors of
this form of entertainment are well-advised, it seems
to me, when they concentrate their attention on
spectacular or sensational episodes, and reduce to a
minimum what M. Sarcey would call (justly enough)
the dramatic element of the production when, in a
word, they " cut the cackle and come to the 'osses."
The " well-made " melodramas have all been written,
the " scenes to be done " have all been done over and
over again till we know them by heart. We and by
" we " I mean the public to which such plays appeal
have but little appetite for copious re-hashes of
such very cold mutton as the appeals of the penitent
heroine to the recalcitrant villain. We are ready and
even eager to accept the most summary indications
of these familiar passages, and get on to the duels,
and shipwrecks, and railway accidents, and zarebas,
and laagers, and Derby Days, and polo-matches,
and explosions, and conflagrations, which M. Sarcey
accepts, half ironically, half naively, as " slices of life."
Illustration, as some one pointed out the other day,
"THE SWORDSMAN'S DAUGHTER." 265
has of late become enormously popular. The demand
for picture-books and picture-papers seems to increase
every day; and a similar tendency, I believe, is
apparent in the melodramatic theatres. People do
not care how slight a setting of text is provided,
so long as the "plates" are numerous and highly
coloured. To this demand The Swordsman's Daughter
conforms. The fencing-school scenes are novel and
animated, the duel is extremely picturesque and con-
vincing, and the storm is a highly effective piece of
musical meteorology. Not a soul in the audience, I
am absolutely certain, missed M. Sarcey's scene a
faire. Some of us, indeed, would gladly have dis-
pensed with one or two of the scenes faites that, for
instance, in which the paralytic father forces his
daughter to confess her misfortune in the presence of
the man she loves.
There is one genuine touch of nature in the play,
quite inadvertent on the authors' part, no doubt, but
none the less typical. When the excellent Vibrac
believes that it is The'rese who has found too late
that men betray, he treats her with the most sym-
pathetic humanity; when he learns that it is his own
daughter who has made the false step, he behaves
to her like a brute. He thus illustrates the great
principle that charity, liberality, tolerance are apt to
begin anywhere else than at home. For the rest,
there is no gleam of originality either in the concep-
266 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
tion or in the writing of the play. The episode of
the sailor's death and his wife's suicide might have
been effective but for three trifling circumstances. In
the first place, the authors (or adaptors) had made him
a bibulous buffoon, in whose fate no one can take the
slightest interest. In the second place, the despairing
widow (probably translating the word bete too literally)
apostrophises the ocean as "You beast !" and thereby
turns the situation to burlesque. In the third place,
the miracle which is apparently intended to prove
that the Everlasting has fixed his canon 'gainst self-
slaughter somehow did not come off. " L'artillerie
du ciel" (as the elder Dumas translated Hamlet's
" canon ") was not rightly " fixed," or else missed fire.
The two latter drawbacks to the success of the scene
have no doubt been remedied by this time. The
idiotic and offensive character of the sailor ought also
to be remodelled, for even if it did not take all the
interest out of this scene, it would still be no less
tedious than senseless. The audience was quite as
much puzzled as the Baron de Chantoisel to find any
humour in the catchword "Man overboard!" The
abject poverty of the comic scenes in general is the
only thing that renders the success of the play at all
doubtful. Popular audiences demand not only good
"coloured plates," but spirited "comic cuts" as well.
These, and not the scenes a faire, are the essential
ingredients of modern melodrama.
"ALABAMA." 267
Mr. Terriss looked noble as the grey-haired swords-
man, and played the part with due dignity and
emphasis. His frock-coat, with the order at the
button-hole, was an incomparable masterpiece. He
did not take the paralysis scenes very seriously, and
in that he was well-advised. Miss Millward made
a pleasant heroine, Mr. Abingdon an unmistakable
villain, and Mr. Charles Fulton a manly and spirited
hero. Other parts were well played by Mrs. E. H.
Brooke, Miss Marriott, and Miss Vane Featherston.
It was not Mr. Harry Nicholls's fault that the Baron
de Chantoisel seemed a very dull dog.
XXXIX.
" ALABAMA."
u//z September.
"I STILL recollect," says Carlyle of Coleridge, "his
'object' and 'subject,' terms of continual recurrence
in the Kantean province ; and how he sang and
snuffled them into ' om-m-mject ' and 'sum-m-mject,'
with a kind of solemn shake or quaver, as he rolled
along." Everybody, nowadays, can sing or snuffle
about "object" and "subject." They are terms one
tries to avoid, as belonging to the stock-in-trade of
pedantry, and cheap pedantry to boot. Yet there
are times when it becomes the first duty of criticism
268 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
to distinguish between the " om-m-mject " and the
" sum-m-mject," as Coleridge would have said to
state the tangible and demonstrable facts about a
work of art, before recording the personal sensations
and judgments to which it gives rise. Criticism, to
be sure, cannot get very far before the " sum-m-mject "
intrudes itself; but, for practical purposes, any quality
or characteristic which is either self-evident or capable
of demonstration to all persons of normal perceptivity,
may be classed as inherent in the object. When I
say, for example, that Mr. Arthur Roberts is jocose,
I record an objective fact; if I add that he is
amusing, I commit myself to a subjective criticism.
Let me try, then, to look at Alabama* objectively,
before passing on to inquire why it delighted me and
the great majority of the Garrick audience, while it
bored a minority, both in the gallery and the stalls.
Its chief characteristics are three : simplicity, amia-
bility, reticence. Nothing could be simpler than its
action, its characters, its emotions. It is a little
nosegay, so to speak, of homely love-stories a
network of what Miss Wilkins would call "humble
romances." Sentimental it is, sentimental and
unashamed; but the sentiment finds sober, un-
rhetorical, often even wordless expression, and
humour always treads close upon its heels, or rather
goes hand-in-hand with it. As for character-study,
* September 2 October 12.
"ALABAMA." 269
if we confine that term to the ransacking of dark
tortuosities of the soul, the analysis of egoisms and
vanities, the diagnosis of disease, why, then there is
no character-study in the piece, any more than in
The Vicar of Wakefield or Pickwick. So far as we can
judge from this single play, Mr. Augustus Thomas
seems to have an eye for superficial quaintnesses of
character, rather than for "psycho-physiological
enigmas." He is a delineator, not an analyst. To
compare him with any of the great creators of fiction
or the drama with Tolstoi or Ibsen, to name only
living examples would be like comparing Randolph
Caldecott with Velasquez. But there is a time for
Caldecott, and a time for Velasquez; nay more, there
are phases of character which belong to the sympa-
thetic humorist, rather than to the soul-searcher or
the seer. Simple characters relatively simple, that
is to say have a real existence, no less than the
complex characters begotten by civilisation and
sophistication. They exist, indeed, in immensely
greater numbers; and the artist has a perfect right
to take us into primitive regions, geographical or
merely social, where no one has dreamt of disinte-
grating or reconstructing the old ideals, and where
the conceptions, or prejudices if you will, of man-
hood, womanhood, love, honour, duty, patriotism,
religion, property, marriage, have been handed down
unaltered from time immemorial. It is into such a
2/0 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
" bayou " or backwater of American life that Mr.
Thomas asks us to follow him. He asks us, further-
more, to take a sympathetic interest in such legendary
phenomena as paternal and filial affection, strong
after years of estrangement, the old love of a man
for a woman, the young love of a youth for a maid,
and the simple, stupid chivalry which will, as a mere
matter of course, face death for the honour of a
woman who denies it all reward. The author's
observation, it is clear, has a distinct bias towards
the amiable. Everybody is delightful except the
villain, and he, from first to last, has "no show."
But in this Mr. Thomas is simply carrying out one
of the clearest precepts of Aristotle. (I have been
reading Professor Butcher's excellent edition of the
Poetics, so that, for the moment, Aristotle and I are
on the most cordial terms.) "In respect of character,"
he remarks (Poetics, cap. xv. i), "there are four things
to be observed. First, and most important, it must
be good. . . . This rule applies to persons of every
class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave;
though the woman may be said to be an inferior
being, and the slave is absolutely bad." Inferior or
not, Mr. Thomas's women are all good, and so is his
slave; though the fact is perhaps rather an index to
the author's temperament than a proof of his reverent
familiarity with Aristotle. Seriously, he averts his
gaze from the night side of life, and paints in bright,
"ALABAMA." 2/1
and tender, and transparent washes. The form of
drama to which his work most nearly approximates
is our own cup-and-saucer comedy. But his mechan-
ism is even simpler than that of Robertson and Albery,
and his style is much more sober. He does not stray
into caricature, into rhetoric, or into artificial wit.
He does not, like Albery, or Mr. Pinero in his earlier
plays, seize upon a metaphor, and work it up into a
sort of fugue of fantasy. He keeps well within the
limits of possible conversation; yet, by nicely choosing
his words, he achieves a certain distinction of style.
I wish Alabama were printed. There are passages in
it that I would gladly quote; for quotation is, after
all, the best way of presenting the "om-m-mject "
A certain subjectivity, I fear, has crept into the
foregoing paragraph; but I don't think even the
critics who pooh-poohed the play will, on the whole,
object to my description of it. "We admit all this,"
they will say; "Alabama may be as simple, amiable,
and reticent as you please; but the fact remains that
its simplicity seemed to us childish, its amiability
mawkish, and its reticence ineffective. In a word, it
bored us." So far was it from boring me, that I
would willingly have gone the next evening and seen
it all over again. Here, then, we face the subjective
problem: Whence arises this diametrical difference
of impression ?
It would be a cheap, and not over-polite, solution of
2/2 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
the difficulty to hint that the despisers of the play are
insensitive to refinement of theatrical workmanship,
or else such stern and stony realists that they cannot
even permit themselves the momentary relaxation of
a little sentimental idealism, however delicate and
graceful. I prefer to consider whether there is any
idiosyncrasy in myself, which renders me more than
ordinarily accessible, or supersensitive as it were, to
the appeal of Alabama. And here the question of
local colour at once presents itself. The play pro-
claims its localism in its very title; it is as clearly a
picture of local manners as UArl'esienne or Cavalleria
Rusticana. Now these local manners have for me, I
confess, a quite peculiar interest and charm ; so that
what may detract from the enjoyment of some people
notably enhances mine. These English-speaking
foreigners, so unlike us in manners and habits of
thought, and yet so instantly and intimately compre-
hensible, are an unfailing delight to me. I will even
go further, and say that in some obscure, irrational
way they minister to my vanity. I am proud of
America; of its history and its literature; of its diver-
sities of climate, nature, character, manners, speech.
They are a precious part of my birthright. Like
Whitman, " I loaf and invite my soul " through all
these strange and foreign regions, where yet my
language and my race-traditions make me so curiously
at home. "A new language," says some one, "is a
" ALABAMA." 273
new sense;" but this English language of ours enables
us to multiply our senses that is, to envisage the
world in new ways without the labour of acquiring
new word-stores or constructive forms. Every pro-
vince of the Anglo-Saxon world (not in America
alone) is now finding expression, and often fine and
original expression, in literature. This decentralisa-
tion of fiction, this return to the soil, has been one of
the chief literary movements of the past twenty years,
and has produced more than one masterpiece". If I
were asked to name an English book of that period
which seemed clearly destined to immortality, I
believe I should pitch upon that boy-Odyssey of the
Mississippi, Mark Twain's Hiukleberry Finn, We
" sin our mercies " or waste our privileges if we do
not go out to welcome these fresh and genial self-
interpretations of our alien compatriots. For me,
at any rate, it is a delight, not an effort, to live in
imagination under the infinite variety of conditions
to which the language of Chaucer and Kipling gives
me free and familiar access. The American War,
too, out of which the action of Alabama springs,
seems to me the one war of recent history in which
it is possible to take a human, as opposed to a merely
spectacular, interest. It possessed genuine elements
of heroism. It was a war of freemen, not of automata :
of ideals, not of personal ambitions or race-hatreds.
For all these reasons, then as a picture of Greater-
18
2/4 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
British life and character, and an extension to the
stage of a large and vital literary movement Alabama
came straight home to my sympathies. The foreign-
ness of scene, customs, and dialect, which annoyed
some critics, added appreciably to my enjoyment of
Mr. Thomas's humour, sentiment, and scenic skill.
In such a matter of personal idiosyncrasy, it would
be ridiculous to assert the " Tightness" or "wrong-
ness " of either way of feeling. But my way of feeling
which seemed to be shared by the great majority
of the audience has at least the advantage of
widening the range of my pleasures.
It remains to be said that the acting, though good
on the whole, was not altogether judicious or fortunate.
In a play which contains a good deal of dialect, the
greatest care should be taken to get every syllable
over the footlights; and in a play of character rather
than incident, the performance should never be
suffered to drag. On the first night of Alabama,
several of the actors were so much taken up with
reproducing the Southern drawl that they frequently
became inaudible, while Miss Marion Terry's nervous-
ness made her very uncertain of her words, and of
course communicated itself, in some degree, to her
comrades. By this time, no doubt, the piece is
played with greater crispness and decision. Mr.
Fernandez and Mr. Willard were admirable as the
long-estranged father and son. The recognition-
"BOGEY." 275
scene at the close, most ingeniously brought about,
is singularly pathetic so much so that the sub-
ordinate actors on the stage, not personally con-
cerned in the situation, were visibly moved by it.
Mr. John Mason was delightful as the chivalrous
Colonel Moberley, and Mr. F. H. Tyler, though a
little too slow, was good as Squire Tucker. Mr.
W. T. Lovell and Miss Agnes Miller made a
pleasant pair of lovers, and the minor parts were
well filled. Whatever the fate of the play, Mr.
Willard has shown true artistic instinct in producing
it, and deserves the thanks of all who care for
delicacy and refinement in theatrical art.
XL.
"BOGEY" "THE CHILI WIDOW."
September.
MR. H. V. ESMOND'S three-act play, Bogey* professes
to give "some account of the curious behaviour of
Disembodied Bates." What it really does is to allege
a crazy incoherence in the order of things, abhorrent
to the reason, and neither pleasant nor profitable
to the imagination. We may not have the right to
ask of a work of art, "What does it prove?" but
a miracle must certainly abide this challenge. A
* St. James's, September 10 September 21.
2/6 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
meaningless miracle is a sort of insanity in the
universal mind, which the particular mind shrinks
from conceiving. It is true that, as the family ghost
explained to Mr. Andrew Lang, the spiritual world
seems generally to be afflicted with aphasia. The
sufferer from this disease says that his tea is blue
when he means that it is sweet, and when he wants
an umbrella is as likely as not to ask for a bathing-
machine. Thus, when Mr. Lang's ghostly visitant
wished to convey to his living descendants that the
drainage of Castle Perilous was out of order, the
nearest he could get to that statement was to drive
round and round the castle in the form of a hearse
and six. This is certainly not a luminous method
of expression; but the proceedings of the umquhile
Master of Perilous were rational and coherent in
comparison with the "behaviour of Disembodied
Bates." A family ghost has, so to speak, an insurable
interest in the welfare of his descendants, and the
hearse and six, if not absolutely perspicuous, was
at least a picturesque adumbration of typhoid and
diphtheria. The deceased Bates, on the other hand,
forger and dipsomaniac, had nothing whatever to
do with Archibald Buttanshaw, into whom his spirit
entered with disastrous results. It does not appear
that Bates was an ancestor of Buttanshaw's, else the
play might pass for an allegory of atavism. It does
not appear that Bates, while in the flesh, was at
" BOGEY." 277
enmity with Buttanshaw or any of his ancestors. A
vendetta prolonged beyond the grave is an accepted
motive in ghost-psychology, and, for the sake of the
thrill, we do not mind pretending to believe in it;
but here there is no hint of anything of the kind.
Finally, it is through no flaw in Mr. Buttanshaw's
own character that the spirit of Bates obtains such
easy entrance into his organism. The Strange Case
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde symbolised not for
the first time in literature that moral dualism which
exists, perhaps, in all of us, arid is very marked in
some. Hyde was, from the first, implicit in Jekyll;
all the potion did was to turn outward the seamy side
of his soul. But in Mr. Esmond's play there is no
mention of any secret affinity, any long-dissembled
bias, which might be supposed to render Buttanshaw
peculiarly susceptible to the influence of a demon on
the prowl. Uncle Archie is the best of men. For
aught that we can see, his youth has been as virtuous
as his age is benignant. Mr. Esmond, then, has not
taken any of the three courses open to him: the
biological, the moral, or the simply sensational. He
has not made the " possession " of his hero a re-
crudescence of ancestral vices, nor an outbreak of
personal vices once indulged and long festering
in repression; nor has he simply extended to the
spirit world the passions and rancours of the flesh,
making Disembodied Bates persecute his victim from
2/8 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
motives which arose (in relation to Buttanshaw himself
or his forbears) while Bates was still embodied. He
has not even, as in the common ghost-story, made the
spirit resent an intrusion into the messuage or tene-
ment of which he, the said spirit, believed himself to
be lawfully seised and possessed. In none of these
forms has he made the slightest attempt to give
meaning and consistency to his miracle; he has left
it utterly motiveless and fortuitous. " But why," he
may perhaps ask, " should I be expected to rationalise
the irrational, to naturalise the preternatural? If
you swallow the camel of spiritual ' possession,' why
strain at the gnat of the particular form it happens
to assume?" Pardon! we do not "swallow the
camel." We are quite prepared to do so if you
hold out adequate temptation in the shape of beauty,
terror, intellectual ingenuity, moral or spiritual fitness
and relevancy; but as it is, we never for a moment
believe in your fable because you do not make us
wish to believe in it. The artist is greatly mistaken
who imagines that by plunging into the supernatural
he can simply shake off all logical and psychological
trammels, and fantasticate at random. The human
mind cannot picture to itself a world devoid of law
and order. You are at liberty, indeed, to establish
what laws or conventions you please in the preter-
natural sphere, but, once established, they must not
be arbitrarily overridden. And, especially in what
" BOGEY." 279
relates to the mind, your laws must not diverge too
widely from those of the real world, or we shall
presently lose interest in their operation. Your
spirits may put a girdle round the earth in forty
minutes, but they must love and hate, think and
feel, pretty much as we ourselves do, or they will
merely bewilder and irritate us. The "behaviour
of Disembodied Bates" is like that of a man who
should suddenly raise his walking-stick and inflict a
severe thrashing on an inoffensive passer-by whom he
had never seen before. When such cases occur we
do not write plays about them, but put the aggressor
in a strait-waistcoat. And if the "curious behaviour"
of a live lunatic does not interest us in the theatre,
why expect us to be thrilled by the proceedings of a
dead one ?
If Mr. Esmond had intended his play as a satire
upon "spiritualism," one could have seen the meaning
of it, though not his reason for devoting three acts
to such a purpose. The behaviour of Disembodied
Bates is not a whit more pointless and futile than the
majority of the actions and " manifestations " of the
mighty dead, according to the believers in this dismal
doctrine. But satire is far from Mr. Esmond's inten-
tion. If spirits exist, indeed, and behave as the
spiritualists allege, it is quite useless to satirise them;
we can only mourn our lot in being born into so
foolish a universe. Satire must be levelled at Mr.
280 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Sludge, not at his "controls"; whereas Mr. Esmond
treats Sludge (under the alias of Noah Em ens) with
all possible respect. The fact seems to be that Mr.
Esmond enjoys his fantasy, and expects us to enjoy
it, simply for its own sake. The, mere imagination of
these incidents, apart from all questions of construc-
tive ingenuity or philosophical significance, gives him
pleasure in and for itself. The first-night audience
seemed to share that pleasure, and I hope other
audiences may be as easily satisfied; for, after all, the
play is quite harmless, and there is a good deal of
really clever writing in it, reminding one now of
Dickens and again of Mr. Pinero. But Mr. Esmond
may rest assured that no work of permanent value
can be produced without a much more strenuous
effort of invention than he has devoted to Bogey.
His fantasy is altogether too arbitrary and facile.
The spirit of Bates enters into Buttanshaw for no
reason and departs out of him for no reason. If the
drama even consisted of a struggle between the evil
principle embodied (or disembodied) in Bates and
the good principle embodied in Fairy Buttanshaw,
one could recognise a sort of rudimentary ethical
significance and dramatic coherence in it. As it is,
there is no sign of any such struggle. The spirit,
indeed, retreats from the presence of the little girl,
and returns in her absence; but it does not appear
that she has anything to do with finally exorcising it.
"THE CHILI WIDOW." 28 1
The whole thing is unconditioned and irrelevant, a
tangle, not a fabric. "It is not so, nor 'twas not so;
but, indeed, God forbid it should be so."
Mr. Esmond's rather thin and sharp-edged voice
an excellent voice for a wide range of character-parts
is scarcely suited to the dual personage of Bates-
Buttanshaw. It has not enough flexibility and
variety. His performance of Buttanshaw was clever
and amiable, but for the thrill of horror (if any)
produced by his Bates, he was mainly indebted to a
green limelight. Miss Eva Moore was charming as
Fairy Buttanshaw, and Mr. F. Everill was good as
the stony man of business who at ten o'clock every
evening becomes a genial man of feeling. Miss
Pattie Bell played the middle-aged heroine very
pleasantly, and Mr. Elliot, Mr. Philip Cuningham,
and Miss Ethel Matthews did all that could reason-
ably be expected with a trio of comic lovers whose
proceedings were undeniably ludicrous, but scarcely
amusing.
M. Sarcey's favourite theory that even in the
wildest extravagance of farce we demand a certain
germ of truth, a "grain of observation," as he loves
to call it, is flatly contradicted, so far as England is
concerned, by the success of The Chili Widow at
the Royalty.* In Bisson and Carrd's Monsieur le
Directeur there may have been this grain of observa-
* September 7 still running.
282 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
tion; but in the Anglicised version it has utterly and
inevitably vanished. Every character and incident is
obtrusively un-English. We have to replace the play
in France before we can find its action conceivable,
even on the plane of farce. It is possible that prefer-
ment in Downing Street does not always go strictly
by merit, and its dispensers are perhaps not steeled
at all points against the blandishments of lovely
woman; but these blandishments are certainly not
brought to bear after the fashion here represented.
And all other details are equally devoid of verisimili-
tude, whether literal or typical. The farce amuses
us, not because we recognise it as representing or
interpreting anything under the sun, but simply, like
a thousand other French farces, because of the in-
herent ludicrousness of the situations. This is
indeed, the most universally popular of all forms of
humour. The act of comparison and recognition
involves more or less intellectual effort, and the
multitude naturally prefers laughter without labour
absurdities which take the muscles, as it were, by
storm, and compel a laugh almost as mechanically
as a pinch of snuff compels a sneeze. At the
same time, those who prefer a little exercise of the
intellect in their amusements may, if they please,
study and admire the ingenuity with which MM.
Bisson and Carre have manipulated their theme, so
as to extract from it all its comic possibilities, and
"THE CHILI WIDOW." 283
keep the fun unflaggingly alive. What I, for my
part, cannot admire is the way in which the English
adapters have either retained from the original, or
invented on their own account, numerous speeches
whose sole attraction lies in their smack of impro-
priety. In the scene between the mother-in-law and
the cook, for example, there are one or two expres-
sions which might come naturally enough to a French
servant, but would be quite impossible to an English
girl of the same class. Again, when the mother-in-
law comes to urge her son-in-law's claims upon the
head of his department, there is legitimate comedy in
her sense of the risk she is running in venturing into
the den of this notorious Don Juan. Instead of
delicately indicating her qualms and tremors, the
authors, or adapters, are content to expound the
comedy of the situation in one crude aside, and then
make no more of it. " Here is the man," they make
her say, " who can grant me everything, but who may
ask a great deal in return." This is dotting the " i "
with a vengeance, and is as undramatic as it is un-
pleasing. Finally, the classic situation in which A.
urges B. to make love to a lady whom B. believes to
be Mrs. A., is developed and elaborated to the point
of nauseousness. The farce would be every bit as
funny if these things were touched with a discreeter
hand. It is brightly and cleverly acted all round.
Mr. Bourchier's Sir Reginald is by far the best thing
284 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
he has done. Miss Violet and Miss Irene Vanbrugh,
appropriately cast as two sisters, play with no less
intelligence than charm; and Mr. Blakeley, Mr.
Welton Dale, Mr. Mark Kinghorne, Miss Sophie
Larkin, and Miss Kate Phillips are all excellent.
XLI.
" ROMEO AND JULIET."
2$th September.
SHAKESPEARE'S tragedy of Romeo and Juliet* was
mounted, costumed, recited, and applauded at the
Lyceum on Saturday evening; acted and enjoyed it
was not. Many people, no doubt, will contradict this
from their own experience, saying, "/enjoyed it
And I ! And I ! " They must allow me, in that case,
to assure them that they do not begin to realise the
sort of pleasure which Romeo and Juliet can, and
ought to, give them. No doubt they enjoyed the
pretty stage pictures, and the gallant bearing of Mr.
Forbes Robertson, and the graceful, gazelle-eyed
helplessness of Mrs. Patrick Campbell; while here
and there, perhaps, a familiar line of Shakespeare fell
pleasantly on their ear. Their sum of agreeable sensa-
tions may have been considerable; but it certainly did
not include the thrill of pity and terror, the quicken-
ing of the pulses, the exaltation, the delight which
* September 21 December 21.
" ROMEO AND JULIET." 285
belong to a true revival of this loveliest lyric and
swiftest, vividest drama in our language or in any
other. For my part, I have to wipe the performance
from my memory, to re-think the play, to re-act it
in imagination, before I can recover any intimate
sense of its poetry, passion, and pathos. If you have
never realised these qualities, and do not look or care
for them, you escape disappointment, and may take
a good deal of pleasure in the pretty spectacle, pretty
speeches, and pretty people presented to you; but
you have not seen, you have not felf, the great love-
tragedy of the world.
The reader may think that I am simply re-wording
Lamb's famous paradox, or rather blaming Mr. Forbes
Robertson and his comrades, unjustly and unreason-
ably, for the fact that the representation of one of
Shakespeare's masterpieces must necessarily, in some
respects, fall short of the imagination of it. But my
ground of argument is quite different from Lamb's.
His contention was that the best conceivable perform-
ance, under the physical conditions of the stage,
inevitably materialises and vulgarises the poet's con-
ception. " The love-dialogues of Romeo and Juliet"
he wrote, " those silver-sweet sounds of lovers' tongues
by night . . . how are they sullied and turned from
their very nature by being exposed to a large assembly!"
He tacitly assumes, you see, that the best that
art can do for them is done, and declares that
286 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
even then they are profaned by stage-presentation.
The Lyceum performance relieves us of all necessity
for discussing this position, since at no point does it
do the best that art can and ought to do. When we
have a reasonably perfect performance, we can argue
with Lamb at our leisure; in the meantime, we have
no material before us for testing his theory. When
no character is represented with anything like dis-
tinguished excellence, and when two of the most
important Juliet and Mercutio are glaringly misre-
presented, we do not get within measurable distance
of Lamb's point of view.
Mr. Forbes Robertson and Mrs. Patrick Campbell,
in the parts of Romeo and Juliet, suffer from
opposite defects: the one has skill without tempera-
ment, the other temperament without skill. Mr.
Robertson can act Romeo, but cannot look or feel
the part; Mrs. Campbell could be Juliet if only she
knew how to act it. Handsome and picturesque Mr.
Forbes Robertson must always look when his costume
gives him the opportunity. In this part he has the
air of a figure from Sir Frederick Leighton's illustra-
tions to Romola. But even if he could put on youth
with his berretta, he could not put off the keen and
ascetic facial contours which are so foreign to the
very idea of Romeo. He is essentially a creature of
reflection. He can but faintly suggest that heyday
of the blood, that sudden springtide of world-trans-
"ROMEO AND JULIET." 287
figuring sense, that unreflecting absorption in the
instinct of the moment, which are the very essence of
Romeo's being. Even his voice, in itself his most
precious gift, is not the fresh young voice of Romeo.
He played throughout with intelligence and discre-
tion ; but the latter quality, at any rate, is precisely the
one with which Romeo could, at a pinch, dispense.
There were one or two trifling matters of emphasis
and phrasing on which I was inclined to differ from
him. For example, in the line, "And what love can
do that dares love attempt," I should certainly follow
the metre and emphasise the " can." The sense is,
surely, " Love will shrink from nothing that is
physically possible. Your kinsman's swords make it
dangerous, but not physically impossible, for me to be
here so here I am ! " Again, Mr. Robertson spoke
the words, "O, mischief! thou art swift To enter in
the thoughts of desperate men," as though they were
a general reflection preceding the recollection of the
Apothecary ; t whereas they surely indicate that the
plan for procuring the poison has instantaneously
flashed into his mind. Mr. Robertson seems to
understand by them, " I am sure I shall easily hit
upon means ; " to my thinking they rather imply,
" Ha ! I already see my way clearly." These are trifling
matters, and no doubt Mr. Robertson could defend
his readings. It is neither thought nor understanding
that is lacking in his performance, but that lyric
288 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
rapture, that throb and flush of youth, which no
intensity of thought can compass. Significantly
enough, the one moment of the whole evening when
the poetry really gripped me was that in which the
world-weary Romeo bids Juliet his last farewell. Mr.
Robertson's voice had just the right sombreness for
those incomparably beautiful verses, and the passage
moved me so that I had no heart to quarrel with
a stage-arrangement which falsified the words, "Thus
with a kiss I die." My conservative instinct rebelled
at first against the reversal of the established scene-
plot, the front of the stage being made the interior of
the vault, and the back, seen through an open grating,
the exterior. The method of sepulture, indeed, is
quite inconceivable; but that disadvantage apart, I
am bound to admit that the new arrangement proved
highly effective.
People said in the lobbies that Mrs. Patrick Camp-
bell looked too old for Juliet ; but there I emphatically
dissent. True, she looked more than fourteen, but it
would have shocked all our instincts if she had not.
Shakespeare made Juliet fourteen because he wrote
the part for a boy who, no doubt, could scarcely look
older; and the public of his day was not shocked,
because the marriageable age was then, by custom,
placed lower than it is with us. It would be the
veriest pedantry to ignore this alteration in manners.
Were I in Mr. Forbes Robertson's place, I should
" ROMEO AND JULIET." 289
frankly substitute "eighteen" for "fourteen" in the
text, nothing doubting of Shakespeare's forgiveness.
In appearance, Mrs. Campbell seemed to me the ideal
Juliet beautiful, with a Southern type of beauty, yet
slim, girlish, and lissome in her movements. She
played the opening scenes prettily enough ; there is
no great effect to be made or marred in them. In
the balcony-scene she spoke her lines correctly, and,
to use an old-fashioned term, elegantly, with that
curious half-foreign nicety of articulation which is at
once a merit and a defect in her delivery. She added
nothing to the beauty of the lines, no new delicacy
of phrasing or subtlety of intonation; but her only
positive fault was a certain monotony. She was
reciting a part, but reciting it with feeling and charm;
and, as she made a delightful picture, we had every
reason to be satisfied. Up to this point, recitation,
though not all that is possible, is all that is essential
to Juliet. A schoolgirl, with a little practice in elocu-
tion, could get through the ballroom and balcony
scenes with credit. Acting, as distinguished from
recitation, sets in with the scene of cajolery between
Juliet and the Nurse; and here Mrs. Campbell at once
fell short. She showed no intensity and no variety
in her expression of eagerness, expectation, disappoint-
ment, anger, affection, rapture, but played all on one
level of prettiness. This scene of two pages is one of
the most skilful and actable ever written by playwright
2QO THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
for actress; I do not remember ever to have seen it
pass, as it did on Saturday night, without the faintest
applause. The audience, though all intent on appre-
ciation, simply thought it one of Shakespeare's dull
moments. Mrs. Campbell, by the way, takes com-
mendable pains to speak the verse correctly, so it
may be worth while to point out that in the line
" From nine till twelve Is three long hours, yet he is
not come," the word " hours" should be treated as a
dissyllable (" how-ers "). Like " fire," it was evidently
so pronounced in Shakespeare's time. I confess with
regret that I did not hear Mrs. Campbell's delivery of
"Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds," placed in
the Lyceum arrangement at the beginning of the
third act* In the scene with the Nurse which follows,
she was monotonous and flat. For instance, a marked
transition of tone is very clearly indicated between the
line "All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?"
and the following passage : " Some word there was,
worser than Tybalt's death, That murder'd me," etc.
Mrs. Campbell attempts no change of tone, marks no
transition of thought. It is all empty rhetoric to her;
she does not feel, or try to make us feel, that Juliet is
really searching in the background of her mind for the
word of -ill-omen which she knows to be lurking there,
* In the Lyceum acting edition, a footnote states that this
scene is " sometimes omitted," and I am informed that Mrs.
Campbell dropped it very early in the run.
"ROMEO AND JULIET." 2QI
though in her bewilderment she has scarcely grasped
its purport. This scene, again, fell quite dead and
passed with no sign of applause. In the parting from
Romeo, Mrs. Campbell displayed a childlike pretti-
ness, without lyrical impulse or ground-swell of
passion. The clinging kiss in which she lets Romeo
almost draw her after him through the window was by
far the best thing in the scene. Where Mrs. Camp-
bell was really excellent was in the little outburst of
temper after her mother has proposed the marriage
with Paris (" Now by St. Peter's Church, and Peter
too," etc.). Petulance is the emotion of all others
which comes best within her range a fact which is
no doubt partly the cause and partly the effect of her
success in Mrs. Tanqueray. It accounts, too, for the
way in which she scolds the Friar in the speech,
" Oh ! bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off
the battlements of yonder tower;" but this is an
error into which many actresses have fallen. Much
more surprising is the absolute lack of expression
with which she listens to the Friar's speech about the
potion. In the course of these thirty-two lines, Juliet
must run the whole gamut of emotion, from curiosity
to wonder, terror, rapture, and resolve; Mrs. Campbell
does not move a muscle to indicate any one of them.
With the same apathy she returns to her father's
house, flatly contradicting the Nurse's speech, " See
where she comes from shrift with merry look." As
292 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
for the potion-scene, it simply does not exist in Mrs.
Campbell's performance. Words cannot describe its
flat, monotonous insufficiency. At two points it was
absolutely comic: where, at the thought that the
Friar may have " subtly ministered " a poison to her,
she uncorks the phial and smells it to reassure herself
a little touch of exquisitely misplaced realism and
then where she stares over the footlights to descry the
ghost of Tybalt somewhere in the dress-circle. Finally,
in her death-scene, she seems to have lost all interest
in the little adventure in which she has been engaged.
Her stoicism is worthy of Cato's daughter, Brutus'
Portia. When the Friar points to Romeo's dead body,
she expresses neither surprise nor emotion, but takes it
quite as a matter of course. She speaks the prescribed
words and goes through the appropriate motions be-
cause she feels that it is expected of her; but she has,
apparently, no personal concern in the matter. The
whole passage is absolutely tame and unrealised.
"But both the potion-scene and the death-scene
were loudly applauded and eminently successful ! "
Yes ; that is why I have spoken my mind about them
so frankly. The explanation is simple enough. The
audience, even the picked first-night audience, has no
means of knowing what are the stage-possibilities of
Romeo and Juliet. Many of them have never seen the
play before; most have seen it only once or twice,
many years ago; none but a few experts have closely
"ROMEO AND JULIET." 293
studied its theatrical qualities. On the other hand,
every one is eager to see a beautiful and very popular
actress in a character of traditional renown, and every
one is (quite literally) eager to applaud her. Half the
pleasure of the occasion lies in the act of applauding,
and the playgoer is not easily to be baulked of that
enjoyment. The earlier scenes genuinely please him,
and he applauds freely. The two great scenes with
the Nurse produce in him no emotion, and he does
not guess what "effects really lurk in them. It never
occurs to him that any applause is called for, and he
reniains silent. But the potion-scene is famous, and
there is an obvious effort after effect. Here is un-
doubtedly an occasion for applause, and he rises to
the occasion. Not to do so would be not only hard-
hearted, but an act of positive self-denial. The scene
affects him very mildly, but he has no criterion of
how it ought to affect him ; he is very good-natured,
and the actress very charming. Still more evidently
are plaudits demanded at the end of the play, and he
is not going to be such a churl as to withhold them.
So "enthusiasm is the order of the evening," the
manager congratulates himself and the world at large,
and the critics record with reverence the "verdict" of
the first-night audience.* Why, then, should I play
* It has been said, and reiterated, that in these remarks I
perform an " exploit in self-contradiction." I reprint them ex-
actly as they originally appeared, and leave the reader to judge.
294 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
spoil-sport at the feast? Simply because if Mrs.
Campbell's Juliet passes muster as a good, not to say
a great, performance, there is an end of an art that I
am old-fashioned enough to love the art of Shake-
spearian acting. Its tradition will be lost more hope-
lessly than ever, and no one will believe that there are
really great and vivid and poignant emotions to be
got out of Shakespeare on the stage. I have very
little doubt that Mrs. Campbell has other than the
merely physical qualifications for the character, and
might be a fine Juliet if she would be at the pains of
mastering this noblest branch of her art. As it is, she
does not even suspect its possibilities. She has some-
where said, if I am not mistaken, that she has never
seen another Juliet and knows nothing of the tradi-
tions of the part. The more's the pity ! It would
need a genius comparable with Shakespeare's own to
discern unaided all the delicate lights and shades of
his conception, and to recognise (to say nothing of
grappling with and solving) all the technical problems
which he presents to his interpreter. Let it not be
said that I am clamouring for a stagey, conventional
Juliet. I do not erect tradition into a law, but simply
assert its uses as a guide. If it does no more, it
concentrates attention upon details, and reveals the
existence of difficulties and opportunities which Mrs.
Campbell passes gaily by, in total unconsciousness of
their existence. If she will consent to regard Satur-
"ROMEO AND JULIET" AGAIN. 2Q5
day's performance as a very slight first sketch for a
portrait to be studiously retouched and elaborated,
she may one day be the Juliet she looks and I can
wish her nothing better.
XLII.
" ROMEO AND JULIET" AGAIN "CHEER, BOYS,
CHEER" " IN A LOCKET."
2nd October.
MY last week's article on Romeo and Juliet, after
exceeding all permissible limits, broke short off with-
out giving any account of the minor characters. I
seize this excuse for returning to a subject which is
not only the topic of the moment, but one of far
more than momentary significance. My article was
written before I had seen other criticisms, and with-
out any foresight of the extraordinary divergence of
opinion to which Mrs. Patrick Campbell's Juliet has
given rise. It was easy enough to foresee that some
critics would be readier than others to accept her
beauty and charm as compensations for the evident
lack of power, and apparent lack of understanding
and feeling, with which she treated the intenser
passages of the play. But it did not for a moment
cross my mind that any one who had ever seen a
great Shakespearian performance, or a great per-
296 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
formance of any sort, would call this a really adequate
and competent, much less a poetic and perfect,
Juliet. What was my astonishment to find that the
majority of critics went into unmeasured and evidently
heartfelt raptures* over an impersonation in which,
after the balcony-scene, I had been unable to discover
a single luminous trait or thrilling moment ! We
have here no ordinary difference of opinion over
which one can only shrug one's shoulders, and
say, " There's no accounting for tastes ! " The direct
imitation involved in the modern prose-drama in
great measure eludes analysis. It is generally impos-
sible to say, " This is rightly, that wrongly, done,"
and give our reasons. We can but record our impres-
sions, and where other people's impressions differ,
argument is futile. It is like discussing colours with
the colour-blind, only that here we have no means of
* I am given to understand that this is not true of the
"majority" of critics. No doubt I jumped too hastily at a
conclusion from the fact that all the papers which I chanced
to see, without a single exception, were unmeasured in their
praises. Mr. Walkley, usually so cool and sceptical, became,
for the nonce, ecstatic. A leading article in the Daily
Chronicle proclaimed that "the most beautiful of all love
poems, the most pathetic of all tragedies, was presented by
interpreters able to rise to the high level of their theme," and
described Mrs. Campbell as "a Juliet to satisfy the eye, the
mind, and the heart." The Pall Mall Gazette said : " To do
justice to the new Romeo and Juliet one would have to go over
the performance step by step, with a steady crescendo of praise.
. . . Never was it given to us to watch a performance as
"ROMEO AND JULIET" AGAIN. 297
proving on which side the colour-blindness lies. But
when we come to Shakespearian drama the case is
different. We have not only traditional standards,
but the clearest internal evidence as to the order of
effects at which Shakespeare aimed ; and when these
effects are not attained, are not even attempted, we
have a right to say not only "This performer im-
presses us thus and thus," but "This performer does
not know the rudiments of the complex and difficult
art he or she is essaying." Remember that by "art"
I do not here mean acting in general, but the special
art of poetic, rhetorical, Shakespearian acting. The
question, then, which Mrs. Campbell's Juliet has, as it
were, brought to a head, is whether this art is to survive
or to become extinct. Many influences have recently
been making for its extinction. The system of long
runs, in particular, minimises our opportunities of
matchless in execution, so big in conception, and so perfectly
tuned, as that of Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Mr. Forbes
Robertson. . . . Personal, beautifully chiselled, free from the
fetters of tradition, a work of art indeed, is the Juliet of Mrs.
Patrick Campbell." "T. P.," in the Sun, wrote: "There
was splendid intensity complete absorption in the part and a
conception of the character that was thoroughly consistent from
the first moment to the last. And the beautiful, rich, and
skilfully-modulated voice never failed to produce the true note.
Whatever differences there may be about details, Mrs. Patrick
Campbell's Juliet will remain one of the historic representa-
tions of the part." These four critics are not, indeed, "the
majority"; but I accepted them, rightly or wrongly, as repre-
senting the main body.
298 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
seeing Shakespeare on the stage, and has thus led
both critics and public to lose hold of all reasonable
standards. During the great period of Shakespearian
acting say from Garrick to Macready, from 1750 to
1850 no season passed in which a score or so of
Shakespeare's plays were not performed at Drury
Lane and Covent Garden ; nowadays we see one,
two, or at most three revivals in a year. The result
is that we literally forget our Shakespeare. Every
audience of those days contained a fair sprinkling of
connoisseurs playgoers who knew the plays by heart,
were critical of readings and "business," and hun-
gered for the particular sensations produced by great
and imaginative acting in the masterpieces of poetic
drama. To-day, we have forgotten such sensations
and the means of producing them. Give us pretty
costumes, a soft Italian atmosphere (the work of the
scene-painter and the limelight-man), and a charming
actress reciting the words of her part like a school-
girl, and -we go away enraptured, under the impression
that we have seen Romeo and Juliet! May I be per-
mitted to quote some words of my own, dated January
2nd, 1894, which are curiously prophetic of the
present situation ? They occur in a Dedicatory
Epistle * addressed to an old friend and comrade in
criticism : " We," I said, " belong to the Old School,
the school for which rhetoric was rhetoric and verse
* Prefixed to The Theatrical World 0/1893.
"ROMEO AND JULIET" AGAIN. 299
was verse. In these days, the critic thinks his duty
amply fulfilled when he has given a picturesque
account of the general impression produced by this
or that sumptuous revival, without condescending
upon a single detail of any sort."
The case of Mr. Coghlan illustrates my point even
more clearly than that of Mrs. Campbell. Mr.
Coghlan's Mercutio was much applauded on the first
night, and has been warmly praised by many critics.
Now if ever actor was obviously disqualified by
illness, nervousness, or both, from doing himself and
his character justice, that actor was Mr. Coghlan on
the evening of September 2ist. He struggled bravely
but painfully against indisposition. He was melan-
choly, languid, indistinct, torturingly slow everything
that the gay and gallant Mercutio ought not to be.
Again and again he so mumbled his words behind
the overhanging peak of his cap that, although I am
tolerably familiar with the text, I could not make out
what he was saying. Like the Scotch editor, "he
jocked wi' deeficulty." It took him an interminable
time to articulate such a phrase as " Oh flesh, flesh,
how art thou fishified ! " For my part, I sat on
thorns, fearing at every moment that he would
utterly break down. Yet the audience and many of
the critics, innocent of all idea as to how Mercutio
ought to be played, saw an actor of established
reputation going through a prominent part at the
3OO THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Lyceum Theatre, and felt it blasphemy to imagine
that he could be anything else than excellent. Who,
again, discovered, what should be patent to any one
who has merely read the text, that Mr. George Warde
was quite misplaced in the part of Capulet ? Mr.
Warde, a sound elocutionary performer, would have
been excellent as the Prince of Verona. He was
slow, bland, and dignified miles away from the testy,
choleric, headstrong Capulet. Miss Dolores Drum-
mond was a correct and passable, but quite colourless,
Nurse; Mr. Frank Gillmore a bright and effective
Benvolio ; Mr. Ian Robertson a picturesque Apothe-
cary; and Mr. W. Dennis a fiery Tybalt with the fire
put out. As I left the theatre on the first night I
met an old playgoer, not a journalist, and asked him
what he thought of the revival. " Well," he said with
much deliberation, " I thought Nutcombe Gould was
a capital Friar Lawrence" and he said no more.
That was precisely my own opinion.
No one knows better or detests more heartily than
I the vices and absurdities, the mouthing, ranting,
and intolerable conventionalism, of bad actors of the
old school. But because a method is liable to abuse,
do not let us abandon all method whatsoever. It is
the central problem of the actor's art, as Shakespeare
himself well knew, to preserve a temperance in the
whirlwind of passion, and to reconcile vehemence
with grace. If we dislike the lyric fervour, the variety
"CHEER, BOYS, CHEER!" 3OI
and intensity of expression, with which Shakespeare
unmistakably intended his lines to be spoken, his
scenes to be acted, why then let us leave Shakespeare
alone, and apply our exquisite new art to material de-
signed and adapted for it. But this is not the case; we
do not dislike these things; we have only forgotten all
about them. We are like people who, hearing Tristan
und Isolde neatly touched on the pianoforte, should
go away and declare this infinitely preferable to the
coarse polyphonies and vocal gymnastics intended by
Wagner. I shall begin, not to believe in this theory,
but to consider it seriously, when I see an actress
who, having proved that she possesses the power and
passion to play Juliet in Shakespeare's way, shall
deliberately, and out of pure artistic conviction,
forswear these crude thrills and ecstasies, and re-study
the part after the fashion of Mrs. Campbell. In the
meantime, I can only marvel to see lack of force,
lack of skill, and lack of understanding, accepted as
the revelation of a new art.
Shakespeare has in -these days unjustly . elbowed
aside some other deserving dramatists. Sir Augustus
Harris, Mr. Cecil Raleigh, and Mr. Henry Hamilton
have produced at Drury Lane a pictorial melodrama
named Cheer, Boys^ Cheer ! * which fully sustains the
reputation of the energetic triumvirate. The first act
* September 19 December 14. Reproduced at Olympic,
December 19 still running.
302 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
is quite amusing. There is a modern Macaire in it
who really delighted me, and as a piece of melo-
dramatic farce the whole scene was far from despi-
cable. Some of its dialogue -rose distinctly above
the ordinary Drury Lane level. When the scenic
marvels set in, my interest languished, but not that
of the audience. Polo at Hurlingham, Rotten
Row in the season, a fight in Matabeleland, and a
reception in a great West-end mansion these are the
principal courses in Sir Augustus Harris's only too
lavish bill of fare; and the public worked through
them with unsated appetite. All the scenes are
bright and effective in their way, and it is said that
" The Last Stand" accurately reproduces a recent
episode in South African history. . There was cer-
tainly plenty of that bluster-cum-blubber which in-
variably accompanies the operations of her Majesty's
forces in melodrama. The piece was well played,
especially by the villains Mr. Charles Dalton and
Mrs. Raleigh and the comic personages, Mr.
Giddens, Mr. Lionel Rignold, Miss Fanny Brough,
and Miss Pattie Browne. Mr. Henry Neville, as the
noble hero, comported himself with a truly impressive
dignity, and Miss Eleanor Calhoun played the thank-
less part of the heroine with a good deal of feeling.
An indescribably extravagant and intricate ab-
surdity, entitled In a Locket* by Messrs. Harry and
* September 16 October 30.
" HER ADVOCATE." 303
Edward A. Paulton, was received with great laughter
by the first-night audience at the Strand Theatre.
It does not, perhaps, stand quite on the lowest level
of farce ; here and there one may trace a touch of
ingenuity in the complications; but its merits, such
as they be, are distinctly unpretending. Mr. Harry
Paulton's own part is largely made up of a sort of
patter bearing no resemblance to conceivable human
speech; but his stolid humour is now and then
amusing enough.
XLIII.
" HER ADVOCATE."
9//fc October.
ONE need have no hesitation in declaring Her
Advocate* at the Duke of York's Theatre,! the best
play Mr. Walter Frith has produced; but that it
could easily be without touching the summits of
dramatic literature. There is a capital idea in it
an idea of which I remember making a mental note
when I came across it, some twenty years ago, in
Grenville Murray's French Pictures in English Chalk.
In those blithesome and innocent days, I used to
dream of writing plays myself, and might very likely
have tackled this subject, but that I shrank from the
* September 26 November 30.
t Formerly the Trafalgar Square Theatre,
304 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
difficulty of bringing a lad) 7 , accused of murder, into
personal and private consultation with an English
barrister at the very outset of her case. This diffi-
culty has had no terrors for Mr. Frith, and experts
declare that he has got over it plausibly enough.
The fact, that is to say, of Mrs. Field's appearance in
George Abinger's chambers, does not cry out against
etiquette and probability; but that does not prove
the ensuing consultation to be either plausible or
dramatic. The inherent strength of the situation
carried it down on the first night; but Mr. Frith
has in reality handled it very feebly. Mrs. Field's
hysterical collapse immediately on her entrance is a
glaring technical error. We know nothing about her
as yet, so her tears do not move us; and the long
pause of uninteresting and commonplace " business "
merely serves to relax the tension of interest. Then
her story is clumsily told, with no ingenuity of
development, while Abinger's comments are quite
obvious, and reveal none of that acumen which we
expect, and have a right to expect, in judicial drama.
Mr. Frith may object that a Q.C. is not a detective;
I reply that, for the nonce, he is that the structure,
nay, the idea, of the play forces him to combine the
detective with the advocate and that there is no fun
in the thing unless he makes some little show of
abnormal sagacity. After Dr. Marshall's entrance,
indeed, Mr. Frith flies to the other extreme, and
" HER ADVOCATE." 305
makes Abinger act as though he had the whole case
at his fingers' ends. For instance, he has not the
remotest ground for threatening Marshall with an
exposure of " his own gross negligence as a medical
man " ; that is a flash of miraculous intuition.
Marshall's conduct, too, is no less incredible than
Abinger's attitude in meeting it. The whole scene is
neither conceivable as a piece of life nor convincing
as a piece of drama; and it has the further dis-
advantage of making Marshall's appearance at the
trial an act of sheer madness.
The second act is brightened by the character of
the bibulous Irish barrister, who has nothing to do
with the play, but, as acted by Mr. J. H. Barnes, is
the best thing in it. Here, on the other hand, the
hero develops a fondness for flowery and melo-
dramatic magniloquence not at all of the forensic
order which destroys our last shred of belief in
him. The scene in the prison raises a curious
technical question. You know the idea the Q.C.
has fallen madly in love with his client, and, believing
passionately in her innocence, and never doubting
that she loves him in return, is determined to secure
for her a triumphant acquittal. Just at the crucial
moment, however, he learns that she loves another
man, and, overwhelmed by this disillusion, has still
to face the ordeal and plead her cause. The con-
juncture would be still more dramatic if the revelation
306 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
of this love were to put a different complexion on
the murder, and, by introducing a new motive,
shake the advocate's faith in his client's innocence.
I forget whether this is the case in Grenville
Murray's story; it is an obvious, development, at
any rate, which Mr. Frith neglects. And now comes
the technical point: Ought the author to have let
the audience into the secret of Mrs. Field's love for
another man ? or did he act wisely in keeping us as
much in the dark as Abinger himself? I am no
bigoted believer in the maxim that a secret must
never be kept from the audience; yet I think Mr.
Frith would have done better to have given us an
early inkling of the true state of affairs. To keep
the secret, in this case, is not merely to leave the
audience in doubt, but to place them upon a false
scent, which is always a mistake. And, besides, the
revelation would certainly have been more effective
had we been led, however vaguely, to anticipate it.
As it was, the thing came upon us with a short sharp
shock of surprise, and was over and done with before
we had time to grasp the situation or work up any
emotion about it.
The third act consists of a trial-scene, neither
better nor worse than many other stage trial-scenes
of recent days. It, again, is written without the
true "fingering of the dramatist" with all his
praiseworthy industry and enthusiasm, that is what
" HER ADVOCATE." 307
Mr. Frith lacks. The effect of Dr. Marshall's appear-
ance in the witness-box was discounted by the fact
that, after the way he had displayed his cards at the
end of the first act, it was sheer lunacy for him to
show face at all. Mr. Somerset played the harassed
and haunted criminal very ably, but the ablest acting,
in such a scene, will not supply the place of a sound
logical foundation. A very similar incident in the
last act of Dark Days, at the Haymarket, was much
better led up to, and consequently more effective.
The quaint behaviour of the judge was, I presume,
founded on fact, or at any rate on anecdote. If so,
it afforded a good instance of a "human document"
cited out of season, for it certainly impaired the
verisimilitude of the scene.
Pray observe that I have endeavoured to deal with
Mr. Frith's play on its own level, without complaining
that it does not rise to other altitudes. It is simply
a story-play, in which we need not look for any higher
quality than dexterity in the telling of the story. It
is of the lack of this quality that I complain not
of the lack of serious character-study, philosophy,
passion, or style, which are not to be expected in this
class of work. Sardou, not Dumas, is Mr. Frith's
model; when he comes anywhere near the model he
has chosen, it will be time enough to inquire whether
he might not have chosen a higher one.
Mr. Cartwright plays the Q.C. with that veiled
308 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
intensity which is the note of his manner. If Miss
Gertrude Kingston made little of the heroine, it was
in nowise her fault the author had given her no
real opportunity. Miss Lena Ashwell showed grace
and sincerity in the undesirable part of a deserted
damsel who is not content to wear the willow quietly,
but must needs flaunt it in the eyes of the world.
Mr. Oswald Yorke and Miss Henrietta Watson played
minor parts with ease and intelligence.
XLIV.
"POOR MR. POTION."
1 6th October,
SINCE the failure, or comparative failure, of The
Ladies' Idol, and the success, or apparent success,
of The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown, I have
had to renounce one of my most cherished illusions.
I plumed myself on being a man of the people, a
typical representative of the British Public, in my
tastes and distastes with regard to farce. On other
subjects the British Public and I might occasionally
differ, but on this one topic, at least, I was proud
to believe that we were unanimous. Farces which
amused me succeeded, farces which bored me failed,
until at the Vaudeville and Terry's I had come to
revel in a sense of restful solidarity with the kindly
" POOR MR. POTTON." 309
race of men. But, alas ! within the past few months
the British Public and I seem to have got out of
tune; our minds have no longer a single thought,
our hearts have ceased to beat as one. When the
cleverest farce of the season (bar one) fails, and the
stupidest farce (bar none) succeeds, one's sense of
solidarity begins to waver, and the kindly race of men
seems almost as incomprehensible at the Vaudeville
as at the Adelphi, at Terry's as at Drury Lane. I
shall venture on no forecast, then, as to the chances
of Poor Mr. Polton* by Messrs. Clarence Hamlyn
and H. M. PaulL It seemed to me to stand, in point
of merit, about half-way between its two predecessors
on the Vaudeville stage rather nearer, perhaps, to
The Ladies' Idol than to Miss Brown. The authors
have a pretty knack of humorous dialogue: and
humour, in farce, goes further than wit Every here
and there a fantastic repartee or unforeseen turn of
phrase would send round the theatre one of those
sudden little shocks of laughter, for the sake of which
much may be forgiven. And there was a good deal
to forgive, especially in the later acts. In the first,
we had a really comic situation in poor Mr. Potion's
well-meant attempt to ingratiate himself with Mrs.
Dashwood's " chicks" by means of presents of toys
the said " chicks 1 ' being two full-grown young ladies
and a muscular medical student Amusing, too, if a
* October 10 December 2.
310 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
little overdone, is the welcome accorded by the
"chicks" to their prospective stepfather. But already
at the end of the first act we feel that the authors
have neglected to carry forward our interest. They
have diverted us with a succession of comic scenes
and quaint sayings, but they have not aroused our
curiosity, and still less awakened our expectation, as
to what is to follow. If Messrs. Hamlyn and Paull
will look at, say, any one of Mr. Pinero's successful
farces, they will find that at the end of the first act
the matter of the second act is clearly foreshadowed,
and our interest is vividly excited. When the curtain
falls on the first act of The Magistrate, we foresee the
meeting of all the characters at the Hotel des Princes,
and are eager to know what comes of it. In The
Schoolmistress, we would not for worlds miss Peggy
Hesseltine's party, which we know awaits us in Act
II. In Poor Mr. Potion, on the other hand, we
neither know nor care what is coming. We guess, of
course, that Potton will somehow wriggle out of Mrs.
Dashwood's toils, but how, when, or where, we have
not the slightest idea. In Mr. Pinero's farces, and in
the best French work, such as The Pink Dominoes or
The Candidate, there is always an adventure afoot,
and we want to see its progress and issue. Here
there is nothing of the sort. The action might go on
for ever, or end at any moment. As a matter of fact,
it starts off on a new line in the second act, the
"POOR MR. POTTON." 31!
"chicks" being now as anxious to promote their
mother's marriage as they formerly were to prevent it.
This second act, though amusing at points, is really
purposeless and empty. It could be omitted without
leaving a sensible gap in the story. If you pay micro-
scopic attention to it, indeed (as we critics of course
must), you will prick up your ears at the statement
that Potton's grandfather married an actress, and
wonder what is going to come of it. I did not fail
to wonder, but I entirely failed to foresee or con-
jecture the device by which the authors get their
hero out of his hobble. It may have been my obtuse-
ness that was at fault; but I wonder how many
people in the audience had even the vaguest suspicion
of the true state of affairs ? The device, when at last
revealed, is an ingeniously fantastic one ; but I
cannot think that the authors have worked up to it
with any skill There are many amusing speeches
scattered here and there amid the boisterous horse-
play of the last act ; and the horse-play itself seemed
to delight the audience. One final word, though, to
Messrs. Hamlyn and Paull. It seems to me that
their farce would have been more attractive if they
had made it a little less sordid. There is not a
single sympathetic touch in the whole play. The
motives of the characters fluctuate between light-
hearted selfishness and utter baseness. Cynicism has
its artistic justification : it is, after all, a method of
312 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
interpreting life ; but this casual grimness, due simply
to the exigencies of the comic intrigue, became a
little tedious. I wonder whether the inexhaustible
vogue of Charlies Aunt may not be due in part to the
fact that it is an amiable and not at all inhuman piece
of absurdity.
The acting is capital. Mr. Weedon Grossmith is
always a delight to me, and the authors have in this
case given him a fairly effective part. Miss May
Palfrey is bright and pleasant as one of the " chicks,"
and Miss Gladys Homfrey plays their much -married
mother a part which might easily be made offensive
with no less discretion than humour. Miss F.
Haydon, too, is excellent as old Mrs. Potton; and
Miss Alice Beet is a delightful slavey. Mr. Beau-
champ did his best with a rather primitive part, but
he should note that the first diphthong in "Fraulein"
is pronounced "oy" not "aw." Mr. Tom Terriss
proves to be the living image of his father only more
so. Mr. F. Saker must surely have misinterpreted
the part of the solicitor's clerk; at least, I could dis-
cover no meaning in it as he played it.
"THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT." 313
XLV.
" THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT."
2yd October.
GENIUS, said some one or other, is an infinite capacity
for taking pains; and if it is to seek utterance on the
English stage, he might have added, it must be
accompanied by an infinite capacity for ignoring
insult. Since he produced The Second Mrs. Tan-
queray two years and a half ago, Mr. Pinero's position
has been a peculiar one. He has drawn down on
himself the wrath yes, the contemptuous and vindic-
tive wrath of two classes of critics: those for whom
the drama died with Congreve, and those for whom
it only began to live in Ibsen. The former class
hated the theatre simply as the theatre, and fiercely
resented the suggestion that anything worth a
moment's notice could come out of it. They felt
it tactless on Mr. Pinero's part to exist at all, and
they repaid the impertinence in kind. The latter class
made Ibsen's technique and their own temperament
the measure of all dramatic excellence, and would put
up with nothing short of excellence according to these
standards. Because Mr. Pinero looked at life from
his own angle, and treated it by his own methods,
they had no recognition for him, no encouragement,
not even helpful remonstrance nothing but im-
314 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
patient and intolerant scorn. At most they grudgingly
allowed that if he would keep to farce he might rank
in their esteem not much below the authors of The
Strange Adventures of Miss Broivn. The position of
the nihilists (if I may call them so) is much more
rational than that of our haughty idealists. Hating
the stage, the nihilists naturally did their best to
stamp out any spark of vitality they could discern
in that quarter. But the idealists professed to love
the stage, and to be working, both by precept and
example, for a free, thoughtful, and virile drama, in
the near future. It has always seemed to me to
show ^he densest ingratitude on their part that they
should have had nothing but sneers and disparage-
ment for the man who was gallantly fighting their
own battles, though perhaps with other weapons than
theirs. Mr. Pinero, fortunately, heeded neither the
one set of detractors nor the other, but kept steadily
on his way. The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, despite
its errors of detail, was a distinct advance on The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray. It was larger in aim and
subtler in method. It revealed, to my thinking (and
I did not gloze the matter), a certain inadequacy in
Mr. Pinero's philosophical equipment; but it showed
nothing but progress in artistic power and sincerity.
At any rate, it did even more than its predecessor to
widen the domain open to the English dramatist. If,
after Mrs. Ebbsmith, Mr. Pinero had chosen to rest
"THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT." 315
on his oars if he had returned, for the nonce, to
sentimental or fantastic comedy, and given us another
Sweet Lavender or Dandy Dick I, for my part,
should neither have wondered nor complained. It
was with some vague expectation of the sort, indeed,
that I came to the theatre last Wednesday night.
All the keener was my pleasure on recognising, as the
so-called comedy unfolded itself, no reversion to older
themes or methods, but another, and this time
a quite unmistakable, movement in advance. The
Benefit of the Doubt* is the truest, firmest, finest thing
Mr. Pinero has yet done. The first two acts are
masterly; there are, I think, technical errors, defects
of manipulation, in the last act, but it, too, is essen-
tially right. The play not only confirms our belief in
Mr. Pinero's talent it heightens our hopes of his
future.
It is a sufficiently shady circle into which the
dramatist introduces us a shallow-souled, frivolous,
unidea'd set. There is more of Hogarth than of Du
Maurier in his social picture. But in what direct,
sober, significant touches it is drawn ! With what
economy of "means and breadth of effect! And
sharp as is the satire, it is not inhuman. This vulgar,
worldly-minded family, hovering on the outskirts of
vice, and restrained from it rather by absence of
passion than by presence of principle; is yet by no
* Comedy Theatre, October 16 December 27.
316 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
means devoid of redeeming traits. The feeble and
flighty mother, the cynical and slangy elder daughter,
the nincompoop son, and the pompous, egotistical
busybody of an uncle, are yet a kindly and not ill-
meaning crew, held together by very genuine family
affection. The aunt, Mrs. Cloys, is a fine creature in
her narrow-minded way, and is drawn with delightful
humour. Her little outburst at the end of the first
act is a true touch of genius, human and dramatic.
As for Theophila, she really lights up the picture for
me. There is excellent stuff in that little woman,
and I wish her lines had fallen in pleasanter places
than between a stick of a Scotch laird and a slip of a
horsey squireen. She is worth twenty of her impla-
cable adversary, the fierce and narrow egoist, Olive
Allingham, who is, however, the strongest character-
study in the play as good in its way as Mrs.
Tanqueray. If there were nothing else in The
Benefit of the Doubt, it would be no small achieve-
ment for any author to have drawn, within the limits
of a three-act play, two such rounded characters as
Theo and Olive. And with all her ungoverned
perversity of nature, even Olive is not odious; where-
fore I say that Mr. Pinero has succeeded in keeping
his satire well on the hither side of cynicism and
brutality. The play is certainly not an agreeable
one. It presents two pairs of commonplace, prosaic,
irreflective characters, placed practically at a dead-
"THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT." 317
lock. There is no even moderately satisfactory issue
from the tangle. Divorce, for instance, would not
help them. The mischief lies in the characters
themselves, not in their circumstances. Thus the
" comedy " is in reality a somewhat sordid character-
tragedy; but it seems to me that Mr. Pinero has
refrained, with true artistic instinct, from making his
picture intolerably grimy and repellent.
So much for the substance of the play; now for
its form and composition. The theme is admirably
chosen, and its everyday elements are woven without
the slightest strain into highly dramatic conjunctions.
Technically, nothing could be better than the first
act. We are in the thick of the action at once, or at
least in the thick of the interest, so that the exposi-
tion, instead of being, so to speak, a mere platform
from which the train is presently to start, becomes an
inseparable part of the movement. The sense of
dramatic irony is strongly and yet delicately sug-
gested. We foresee a " peripety " apparent pros-
perity suddenly crumbling into disaster within the
act itself; and, when it comes, it awakens our sympathy
and redoubles our interest. Mr. Pinero here displays
to perfection that art to which I alluded last week, of
arousing at the end of one act vivid and eager antici-
pation of what is to follow in the next. We feel
much more than mere curiosity we feel active con-
cern, almost anxiety, as though our own personal
3l8 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
interests were involved in the matter. And the
second act has not proceeded five minutes before our
anticipation becomes positively breathless. As soon
as Mrs. Allingham is installed in her husband's house,
we foresee the delightfully tragi-comic conjuncture
brought about by the arrival of the Cloys-Portwood
embassage, and on the top of that the dire complica-
tion of Theophila's appearance. It is all quite prob-
able, natural, and yet intensely, thrillingly dramatic.
And how excellently it is written ! Avoiding artificial
wit or rhetoric, Mr. Pinero again and again, and yet
again, hits on precisely the word of the situation the
one phrase which can reveal in a flash its full dramatic
potency. We shall have some critics, I dare say,
objecting to the " overhearing " as a piece of stage
conventionalism. But the distinction is obvious
between your ordinary, casual overhearing, which
occurs simply because it is convenient that some one
should find out something he is not intended to
know, and a deliberately planned test or ordeal
which is the essence of the drama. The scene
between Allingham and Theo, with Olive in the
library, is as legitimate as that between Hamlet and
Ophelia, with the King and Polonius in the alcove.
As for poor Theophila's breakdown at the close, it is
painful, no doubt, and well-nigh squalid to the con-
ception; but it is so lifelike, so inevitable, one feels
not only that Mr. Pinero's daring is justifiable, but
"THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT." 319
that not to have dared would almost have been a
treachery to truth. The scene is one of Fate's grim
pleasantries. I find only two things to cavil at in
this masterly act. There is a little too much ingenuity
of pre-arrangement for the final scene, too much
insistence on the acoustic relations between the hall
and the library; and the scene of embarrassment
which follows the entrance of the Cloys-Portwood
trio is a little too protracted. A woman like Mrs.
Cloys would certainly have taken any means to cut it
short at an earlier point.
The third act is technically much less excellent. I
wish Mr. Pinero had seen his way to wind the thing
up briefly in three or four strong, clear-cut scenes
between the four principal characters or five, in-
cluding Mrs. Cloys as dea ex machina. The Sittings
in and out of the whole troop of relations are im-
probable and distracting, and Sir Fletcher Portwood
in particular becomes positively tedious. I suppose
Mr. Pinero felt that for the Comedy Theatre he must
produce a comedy; but we nowadays care little for
labels, if only we are given a work of art. And there
is a more radical defect in this act the author fails
to afford us any inkling of the end towards which he
is working. Through scene after scene we appear to
be making no progress, but going round and round
in a depressing circle. There were moments, and
even minutes, when the patience of the audience was
320 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
visibly strained almost to snapping partly, no doubt,
because of defects in the acting, but mainly on account
of the author's omission to provide us with any point
of issue on which to fix our expectations. Yet the
essentials of the act were, to my thinking, right
enough it was the superfluities that jarred, and the
sense of hopeless deadlock that oppressed us. It is
difficult, no doubt, in a picture-play as opposed to a
problem-play, to forecast any definite issue. There is
here no problem which can be formally solved, and
of which we may be supposed to foresee and desire
the solution. That is, from one point of view, the
great advantage of the theme ; that is what makes the
general effect of the play so lifelike. Mr. Pinero is
not constructing a pattern, or following out a pre-
determined curve which must pass through certain
points to a given end. He is painting a picture,
largely, leisurely. We do not feel that every word is
strictly conditioned by its relation to a hard-and-fast
scheme. We are conscious throughout of space for
a little marginal illustration. The dialogue is not a
cemented mosaic, but reproduces, within limits set
by a fine artistic instinct, the fluidity of life, the ebb
and flow of emotion. But I take it to be essential
that the margin should narrow as the story goes on ;
whereas in this case, it is, if anything, wider in the
third act than in the first. And, though there was no
absolute solution to be arrived at, Mr. Pinero might
"THE RISE OF DICK HALWARD." 321
have allowed us dimly to divine a possible " way
out."
The acting was not, on the whole, fortunate, though
Miss Winifred Emery and Miss Rose Leclercq were
admirable and invaluable as Theophila and Mrs.
Cloys. Miss Lily Hanbury, Mr. Leonard Boyne,
and Mr. J. G. Grahame, on the other hand, were all
more or less inadequate to the problems set them;
and even Mr. Cyril Maude, clever actor as he is, did
not seem quite the man for Sir Fletcher Portwood.
A play, according to Auguste Vitu, should contain
a painting, a judgment, and an ideal. Mr. Pinero
has given us the painting; the judgment we need
not insist on, for judgments are generally wrong;
but it would do no harm if, in subsequent works, he
could manage to throw in a touch of the ideal.
XLVI.
" THE RISE OF DICK HALWARD."
October.
SUPERLATIVES are always to be handled with caution,
so I will not say that The Rise of Dick Halward, at
the Garrick,* is the most childish play I ever saw.
But this I will say, that I can remember no play
* October 19 November 9 (with occasional performances of
The Professor's Love-Story interposed).
21
322 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
produced at an evening performance at a West-End
theatre so absolutely devoid of intelligence in con-
ception and skill in execution. Its one merit is a
certain rough-and-tumble, harum-scarum humour in
the opening scenes. Mr. Jerome has an eye for the
small absurdities of lodging-house life, and a relish
for the good-fellowship and animal spirits of bachelor
Bohemianism. But as soon as the ladies come on
the scene, the humour sinks into vulgarity, and the
play becomes as unpleasant as it is preposterous.
Dick Halward, son of a country doctor (you will
see presently why a surgery is indispensable), has
been in Mexico, but has come home and gone to the
Bar. This step he regrets, because, as he puts it
epigrammatically, " It's easier to get silver out of
the ground than out of men's pockets." As he is
soliloquising to this effect (he out-Hamlets Hamlet
in soliloquacity), enter a letter from Mexico. An
old comrade of his has bequeathed to him, with his
dying ink-drops, a fortune of half a million dollars,
in trust to deliver it over to his (the old comrade's)
long-lost son, who is nineteen, and probably goes by
the name of Englehart that is the sole clue afforded
for his discovery. All this the dying miner states
in a letter; the will itself, on the face of it, leaves
the property absolutely to Halward. Sagacious old
miner ! he knew that clues would be superfluous, for
the long-lost son would inevitably be just at Dick's
"THE RISE OF DICK HALWARD." 323
elbow. It is the nature of long-lost sons (as the
author of Stageland has, or ought to have, pointed
out) always to be hanging around precisely where
they are wanted or not wanted. But Dick, being
comparatively unused to the ways of the world, does
not realise this, and little dreams that the youngster
who shares his chambers with him is the very man.
He is called, not Englehart, but Reggie Philbrick
(don't ask me why !), and there is no reason to
believe that he is a long-lost son at all. But such
trifles would not baffle Dick if he had any knowledge
of the workings of Providence, as revealed in the
British Drama. Presently two ladies come to tea
with Dick and Reggie; their "young women" I
suppose one ought to call them. Noticing the tidi-
ness of the room (or something of that sort), Dick's
young woman observes to Reggie's, " What capital
husbands they'd make if we ever wanted such things!"
Then, when some piece of masculine make-shift comes
to the surface, the same young woman remarks to
Dick, "I won't have you about a house of mine;"
and again, when she sits down to toast the muffins,
" How delightful it is for you to see me playing
housewife at your fireside !" After a few such airy
railleries, it would not surprise us if these damsels
exchanged hats with their swains, and the whole
quartette departed for a happy afternoon on Hamp-
stead Heath. On the other hand, words cannot
324 THEATRICAL ^YORLD OF 1895.
picture our astonishment when Dick's young woman
informs him that she cannot marry him because he is
" poor, as the nicest fellows usually are," whereas she
cannot exist on less than ^5000 a year ! She has
a soul above muffins. " I must," she says, " have
choice wines and dainty foods. I must see rich jewels
sparkling on my oivn white arm." (The expressions
in italics are her very words; the context I supply
from memory.) Therewithal the two heroines take
themselves off, or are taken off by a haughty mamma;
and we realise with amazement that they are not
young persons released from their duties by the
Thursday early-closing movement, but represent Mr.
Jerome's conception of what he would no doubt call
Society ladies. Dick Halward, crushed by Madge's
mercenariness, exhales his woe in another long
soliloquy, offering to sell his soul to Satan for
^5000 a year; and at that word he lays his hand,
quite promiscuous-like, on what? you will never
guess why, on his Mexican friend's will ! Half a
million dollars at five per cent. ^5000 a year to a
fraction ! Such is the scrupulous accuracy of the
Devil's arithmetic. After some wrestlings of con-
science, all in soliloquy, Dick burns the letter, and
prepares to take out probate of the will for his own
behoof and benefit.
Now, if Mr. Jerome had even the skill to get its
little modicum of dramatic effect out of this theme,.
" THE RISE OF DICK HALWARD." 325
he would show us Dick Halward apparently prosper-
ing for some time on his ill-gotten wealth. But not
a bit of it ! In the very first scene of the second
act we find the game is up. The deceased miner,
Reggie's father, wrote his letter to Dick seated in the
doorway of a hut; a chance photographer took a
snap-shot at him; and on returning to England the
chance photographer has nothing more pressing to
do than to chance upon the one man who knows
Reggie's history, and to show him the photo of the
dying miner, whom he at once recognises. By aid
of a microscope, the letter he is writing can be
deciphered; and thus Dick's fraud is discovered,
though as yet it is not known that he is the criminal.
Mr. Jerome avers that this incident is quite possible,
for he has tested it. The part played by the camera
and the microscope may be possible enough; but
that does not diminish the puerility of the conception,
or strike off a single link from the monstrous con-
catenation of chances involved in it. The thing
simply insults the intelligence. " But soft ! " you
say. " Perhaps Mr. Jerome justifies or palliates the
absurdity by extracting from it a powerful situation.
One can foresee a capital scene when Dick Halward
is confronted, as if by magic, with the very words of
the letter which he has so carefully destroyed." Yes,
any one can foresee it except Mr. Jerome. No such
cheap and obvious effects for him ! He is careful to
326 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
make the man who hands Dick the copy of the letter
explain beforehand how it has been obtained, so that
Dick, though doubtless surprised and disgusted, is
not in the least thunderstruck, and manifests no
emotion. Thus we approach one solitary dramatic
moment only to sheer off from it; and the action
shambles along as best it may.
Dick's young woman, you must know, agrees to
marry him now that he has ^5000 a year; but
though she has no reason to suspect that the stipu-
lated sum is dishonestly come by, she now hates
him and overwhelms him with contempt. I presume
this is psychological subtlety on Mr. Jerome's part.
Indeed, I think I can vaguely divine the idea that
must have been in his mind; but, as he has never for
a moment made Madge credible to us, her revulsion
of self-contempt interests us not a whit. In spite of
the extraordinary density of all concerned, suspicion
bsgins to centre upon Dick. He manages to avert it
for a time; but in order to do so he has to tell a lie
indeed, several lies. This his proud nature cannot
brook. Robbery, yes, at a pinch; but fibbing, never!
He abstracts a dose of prussic acid from his father's
medicine shelf now you see why his dear old dad
is a doctor and, calling all his friends around him,
he confesses his villainy. They go off in silent
amazement, Madge last, and he seizes the poisoned
chalice. But mark, now, how his habit of solilo-
"THE RISE OF DICK HALWARD." 327
quising stands him in good stead. If he drank the
potion sans phrase, there would be an end of Dick
Halward. But of course he must have his usual
soliloquy, must tell himself how he once saw a dog die
of prussic acid, and so forth; and this gives Madge
time to search her soul, and discover that, now that
he is a pauper and a criminal, she loves him with all
the devotion of her passionate nature. She returns
to the surgery just in time to stay his hand as he
raises the goblet to his lips, and they determine, in
the orthodox fashion, to begin a new life in a new
land.
One would pity Mr. Willard in the part of Dick
were it not that he presumably chose it for himself.
To Miss Marion Terry, on the other hand, who
struggled gallantly with the young lady of the white
arms and the dainty foods, I offer my respectful
sympathy. Mr. Esmond and Miss Annie Hughes
were bright enough as the comic lovers, and Miss
Winifred Fraser was excellent in the small part of a
slavey. Mr. Jerome seemed at one time to promise
well as a farce-writer, but he appears to have no
talent whatever for serious drama. Dick Halward
has, I understand, been successful in America; and
if criticism can make the fortune of a play, it ought
to succeed here as well. Such inexplicable chances
do occur in the theatrical world, but they are rare
exceptions. I am sure Mr. Jerome is only laying up
328 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
disappointment for himself if he lets his good luck in
the present instance persuade him to go on working
the same vein.
Messrs. Lewis Waller and H. H. Morell have re-
produced Mr. Carton's entertaining romance, The
Home Secretary, at the Shaftesbury Theatre.* If
poetry consisted in abundance of metaphor, The
Home Secretary would be one of the most poetical
plays in the language. There are passages in it for
instance, the after-dinner chat of the Home Secretary
and the Solicitor-General as gorgeous with imagery
as any prismatic patch in Troilus and Cressida.
Apart from this mannerism (which is preferable, after
all, to mere vapid vulgarity of talk) the play is quite
amusing, and lets itself be seen with pleasure. Mr.
Lewis Waller, Miss Neilson, Miss Maude Millet, and
Mr. Sydney Brough resume their original parts, while
Mr. Fred Terry replaces Mr. Wyndham and Miss
Lottie Venne Miss Mary Moore.
XLVII.
"TRILBY" "THE LORD MAYOR" "MRS.
PONDERBURY'S PAST."
bth November.
A DRAMATIC romance named Trilby was produced
at the Haymarket Theatre! last Wednesday. It is
* See p. 144. t October 30 still running.
" TRILBY." 329
written by an American playwright, Mr. Paul M.
Potter, and is stated to be "dramatised from George
Du Maurier's novel." I fancy I have heard of this
work, and several people in the audience seemed to
have read it. A play, however, must stand or fall on
its own merits, and I have not thought it necessary
to acquaint myself with Mr. Potter's alleged original.
Not that I have any prejudice against the dramatisa-
tion of novels. So far as I am concerned, the
dramatist may take his material wherever he finds
it ; my business is with the use he makes of it But
it is my right, and my duty, to place myself in the
position of the man who knows nothing beforehand
of the plot and characters an end which I can most
securely attain by actually being that man.
Without hesitation, then, I can declare that Mr.
Potter has told his story clearly enough within the
limits of his four acts. This was all the easier as he
had very little story to tell. Let me briefly set down
what I make of it, that those who know the book
may judge for themselves how much or how little of
its effect Mr. Potter has got over the footlights.
Trilby O'Ferrall, the daughter of a drunken Irish
Bohemian, is cast adrift at an early age in the
students' quarter of Paris. She has a nature of gold,
and passes unsullied through the trials and tempta-
tions of a model's existence. Three more or less
English artists, nicknamed Taffy, The Laird, and
330 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Little Billee, fall in love with her, and she loves
Little Billee, who is determined to marry her in
spite of his mother's opposition. But a Franco-
German-Jewish musician named Svengali sees in her
an opportunity for making his fortune. She has a
splendid voice, inherited from her father, but no ear
for music, so that she cannot sing a note in tune.
No matter ! Svengali will hypnotise her, and inspire
her with his own genius. In a state of hypnotic
trance, she leaves Paris with him on the day before
she was to have married Little Billee, and is not
heard of for five years. Then, one evening, the
three artists and all their friends happen to meet at a
sort of Parisian Alhambra, where a new star, Madame
Svengali, is to appear. They at once recognise her
as Trilby; but she does not know them, for she has
been all this time under the hypnotic spell of the
wicked enchanter Svengali, who has beaten and ill-
used her in order to make her sing. The incessant
strain of hypnotising and being hypnotised has mean-
while almost exhausted both his and her vitality, so
that they are both at death's door. She sings one
song, "Ben Bolt," with enormous applause; but in
the interval between her two " turns " Svengali
encounters the three artists, quarrels with them, and
dies of heart disease. She, not knowing of his death,
attempts to sing her second song, but makes only
hideous noises, and is hissed off the stage. Then
"TRILBY." 331
she has a fever, and, recovering, is once more about
to marry Little Billee; but the malignant wizard,
from his grave, sends her his portrait for a marriage
present, and the shock of seeing his face kills
her.
We have here, then, a fantastic fairy-tale a mixture
of Miirger and Hoffmann. It appeals throughout to
the imagination, not to the intelligence. I had almost
said that it addresses itself to the child in us, not to
the man; but children have a habit of asking, " Is it
true?" and that we deliberately refrain from doing.
These things are told us, and we listen to them, not
because they pretend to be actually or symbolically
true, but because they somehow or other tickle the
fancy. The lighter side of the picture charms us by
its very familiarity. The "primrose by the gutter's
brim," spotless and virginal in the midst of corruption,
is always gratifying to our passion for antithesis. (I
am told that in the book she is not immaculate; but
American chivalry has expunged her past.) Familiar,
too, are the three sworn friends, all in love with
the same woman, two of whom remain her trusty
champions after she has given her love to the third.
These legendary figures are always agreeable to the
imagination, and they are here presented with a good-
humoured quaintness which lends them an air of
novelty. As for the dark side of the picture, its
charm is simply the sempiternal fascination of
332 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
diablerie. Not for nothing does Svengali wear the
features of a gargoyle from some medipeval minster.
He is lineally descended from the Devil of the
Miracle Plays, own brother to Mephistopheles, and
first cousin to the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and a
whole tribe of demon musicians. Why this grotesque
hocus-pocus should enchant us I really do not know,
but, for my own part, I am not at all exempt from its
influence. Our Gothic ancestors no doubt revive in
us, and the terrors which made them what Stevenson
calls "midnight twitterers," coming down to us attenu-
ated by scepticism, are found readily available as
aesthetic motives. The Goth is not the highest
element in our composition. He lives in our nerves,
whereas the Greek lives in our intellect. But since
the nerves respond automatically to the stimulus of
theatrical effect, whereas the intellect responds only
through a voluntary effort, when Goth meets Greek
in the theatre there is practically no tug of war the
Goth holds the field. That is why Sir Henry Irving's
Faust a vulgar piece of diablerie outstripped in
popularity his most distinguished and beautiful pro-
ductions. That is why Mr. Tree's Svengali a per-
formance not vulgar, indeed, but superficial and facile
will very likely prove the great success of his life,
and become as closely associated with his name as
Dundreary with Sothern's or Rip Van Winkle with
Jefferson's. When I add that the heroine of the
"TRILBY." 333
nursery-tale the Beauty of this Beast is a beauty
indeed, with precisely the right quality of fresh and
childlike loveliness, you will readily understand how
wide, how universal, is its appeal. Its atmosphere
of painting and music is also greatly in its favour.
Three acts out of the four pass in a studio, than
which there can be no more attractive scene unless
it be the foyer of a theatre, in which the remaining
act is placed. Svengali's quality as a musician, too,
makes "slow music" an essential element in the
action, and quite naturally converts a great part of
the play into what the Germans call " melodrame "-
dialogue spoken through music. Thus all possible
ingredients of popularity have, by chance or skill,
been assembled in this play. Why, the very title,
Trilby, with its bird-like quaver, acts as a lure to
draw people together.
Let me define my meaning with respect to Mr.
Tree's Svengali. It is by no means a bad piece of
acting on the contrary, it is quite as good as the
play requires or permits. But it stands on a low
plane of art, because it is not an effort of observation
or composition, but of sheer untrammelled fantasy.
Mr. Tree is simply doing what comes easiest to
him, luxuriating in obvious and violent gestures and
grimaces, expending no more thought on the matter
than is involved in the adroit use of his personal
advantages and the mechanical resources of stage
334 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
effect. Please note that I say this without reproach;
Mr. Tree gives the character all the thought that it
requires or admits of. He makes the most of his
material; but his material is second-rate at best.
When I was an idle schoolboy, I remember achieving
a great reputation among my classmates by a knack
of drawing just such figures as Svengali spidery
monstrosities, with flagrant hair and tentacle-limbs
contorted in all sorts of extravagant postures. I
had not the remotest talent for drawing, and never
attempted to represent a man in natural proportions
or conceivable attitudes; but by sheer unbridled
whimsicality, I somehow managed to impress the
schoolboy imagination and sense of humour. Mr.
Tree's Svengali carries this art to its highest pitch;
but its highest pitch is low as compared with the
summits either of poetical acting, or of such true
character-acting as Mr. Tree himself has sometimes
given us. To revert to a former illustration, the
carvers of the Gothic gargoyles were artists in their
way, but we do not class them with Michael Angelo,
or even with Houdon. Miss Dorothea Baird, as
Trilby, is not only beautiful, but intelligent and un-
affected. She is not yet an accomplished actress;
there were points, notably in the third act, where one
felt that a touch of real inspiration would have trans-
muted the fairy-tale into tragedy, and thrilled us with
terror and pity; but, on the fairy-tale level, Miss
"THE LORD MAYOR." 335
Baird made an absolutely ideal Trilby. Miss Rosina
Filippi was an admirable Madame Vinard. Her
recognition of the three artists in the third act was
the most genuine piece of acting of the whole
evening. The other parts were fairly well played,
but the interest of the piece would certainly be
heightened by a less insignificant Little Billee than
Mr. Patrick Evans.* Let me add I don't know
whether it is a confession or a boast that so
thoroughly did I enter into the innocent playfulness
of the production that I can scarcely help laughing as
I write at the recollection of the Laird's false nose.
The remaining productions of the week need not,
unfortunately, detain us long. The Lord May or, \ by
Messrs. W. E. Bradley and H. and E. Paulton, at
the Strand, is a hash-up of Vice- Versa and Mr.
Jones's Judah, with a flavour of Trilby thrown in.
I am not impugning the author's originality, but
merely taking the briefest way of indicating the com-
ponents of the " What-you-Will " for the authors
not unreasonably shrink from taking in vain the
sacred name of "farce." Something might have
been made, no doubt, of the notion of a temporary
rejuvenescence, though I fancy the vein of super-
natural farce is pretty nearly worked out. The
* This gentleman was presently replaced by Mr. H. V.
Esmond.
t October 31 November 5.
336 THEATRICAL \\ORLD OF 1895.
authors, in any case, have placed the idea in an
utterly foolish and unattractive setting, and have
overlaid it, by way of dialogue, with dense masses
of inconceivable patter. The result is hopeless
tedium, scarcely enlivened by an occasional flicker
of Mr. Harry Paulton's peculiar quaintness. At the
Avenue, on the other hand, excellent acting of its
kind is thrown away upon the emptiest of French
farces, a thing we have seen better done twenty times
before. We have really no use, in these days, for
work of the calibre of Madame Moxgodin, by MM.
Blum and Toche, Englished by Mr. Burnand under
the title of Mrs. Ponderburys Past* The one origin-
ality of the idea is negative we are spared the
usual mother-in-law, all possible odiousness, and
more, being concentrated in the wife. There is no
approach to common sense in her conduct, or in that
of the mutton-like husband, who alleges sleep-walking
as an excuse for his delinquencies. Mr. Burnand
has done his work neatly enough, and has been
marvellously sparing of puns; but the whole humour
of the production really consists in not calling things
by their names, and in our instinctive retranslation
of meaningless English into cynical French. Mr.
Charles Hawtrey, though not so amusing as he some-
times is, for the part is a miserable one, seemed to
me to show even more than his usual cleverness in
* November 2 still running.
" THE SQUIRE OF DAMES." 337
differentiating this particular liar from all the other
liars of his repertory. Miss Alma Stanley made of
Mrs. Ponderbury a sort of suburban Semiramis, and
Miss Lottie Venne did wonders with an irksomely
inevitable music-hall divette.
XLVIII.
"THE SQUIRE OF DAMES" "A TRILBY TRIFLET."
November.
IT is humiliating to find that, for all our talk about
the Renascence of the Drama, the reconciliation
between culture and the stage, etc., etc., it is
still possible for a manager to produce, and an
audience to accept, not only without protest but
with enthusiasm, such vapid Anglo-Gallicisms as
The Squire of Dames* One had hoped that the
day was past for this sort of thing, and that
we no longer lived on crumbs and in this case
stale crumbs from our neighbours' table. By what
sorcery does Mr. Wyndham suppose that a bad old
French play can be transformed into a good new
English play? His experiment with Le Demi-Monde
(and that was three years and a half ago) surely did
* November 5 still running.
338 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
not result very brilliantly.* Yet Le Demi-Monde was
in itself a better play than L 'Ami des Femmes. The
fact is, Mr. Wyndham does not care whether a play
is good or bad, French or English, antiquated or
modern ; he simply looks for a showy part, and takes
it wherever he finds it. And the audience, with
bland docilit) 7 , makes itself his accomplice. So long
as 'Mr. Wyndham is on the stage, saying more or
less witty things in his incomparably airy or aerated
fashion, they do not care a jot whether the character,
trie philosophy, the action as a whole, bears any
conceivable relation to life as they know it. This
accommodating frame of mind is a survival from the
days when Matthew Arnold could write without fear
of contradiction : " We in England have no modern
drama at all. We have our Elizabethan drama. We
have a drama of the last century, and of the latter
part of the century preceding. . . . We have appari-
tions of poetic and romantic drama. . . . But we
have no modern drama." This was written in 1879.
* Mr. Wyndham finds in this phrase an implication that The
Fringe of Society was a financial failure, and assures me,
"without giving me permission to publish the figures," that
the play ran weeks, and that the profit amounted to ,
naming in each case a highly satisfactory total. I have assured
Mr. Wyndham, in return, that I was not thinking of the
financial, but of the artistic, result of his experiment with
Le Demi-Monde. The expression, however, is no doubt am-
biguous, and I regret that it should have caused Mr. Wyndham
annoyance.
"THE SQUIRE OF DAMES." 339
Sixteen years have passed, and to-day we have a
modern drama, or the beginnings of one; but unless
it is to end ere it is well begun, we must make a
firm stand against the indolent and unintelligent
managerial methods of the dismal old adaptive days.
It is scant encouragement to Mr. Pinero, Mr. Jones,
Mr. Grundy, Mr. Carton himself, to find that we are
incapable of distinguishing between English manners
of to-day and French manners of thirty years ago, or,
at any rate, that we are quite content to see per-
sonages who bear English names, and are dressed
in the fashions of the hour, thinking the thoughts,
speaking the words, animated by the ideals and pre-
judices, of Parisians under 'the Second Empire. (The
Parisians, it is true, did not recognise themselves in
the mirror held up by Dumas; but it will scarcely be
pretended that this was because his mirror was a
magic one, prophetically foreshadowing the London
of '95.) The argument that human nature is much
the same everywhere and at all times has nothing to
do with the present case. There is doubtless an
unalterable residuum which constitutes the immortal
element in the ideal drama in the Antigone, in
Hamlet, in Faust. But L'Ami des Femmes is a play
of local and temporary manners if ever there was
one. If it was true then and there, it is false here
and now; if it was untrue at the Gymnase, it can
only be still more untrue at the Criterion. " We
340 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
have no modern drama," said Matthew Arnold (to
resume where we broke off), "but we have numberless
imitations and adaptations from the French. All of
these are at the bottom fantastic. We may truly say
of them that 'truth and sense and liberty are flown.'
And the reason is evident. They are pages out of a
life which the ideal of the homme sensuel moyen rules,
transferred to a life where this ideal does not reign.
For the attentive observer the result is a sense of
incurable falsity in the piece as adapted." Matthew
Arnold's "attentive observer" was evidently in a
vanishing minority among the Criterion audience;
yet it was practically the same audience which, a few
nights before, applauded The Benefit of the Doubt
a piece which only attentive observers can really
appreciate. Are we to conclude that in both cases
it is the mere situations that the mass of the audience
applauds, heedless of their relevance or irrelevance,
truth or falsity ? I fear the conclusion would not be
unjust, so far as the mass of the audience is con-
cerned. All the more strongly must criticism insist
that observation and art are not entirely thrown
away, and that there is always a " remnant " which
knows the difference between a fine English play and
a tawdry international nondescript.
Dumas himself (differing from Mr. Wyndham) has
admitted that E Ami des Femmes is not one of his
good plays. " L'action etait en dedans," he says.
"THE SQUIRE OF DAMES." 341
"et les theories etaient en dehors, faute capitale au
theatre." That was perhaps the capital fault in 1864;
to-day we do not trouble to inquire whether the
action is internal or external, it is enough that we
know it to be ludicrously old-fashioned and tricky.
The construction is not really characteristic of Dumas
fils ; it rather suggests Scribe, with touches, now and
then, of Dumas pere. How puerile is the miraculous
astuteness of De Ryons, with his prophecies which
are always fulfilled by pure chance ! He is a creature
of cheap romance a sort of charlatan Sherlock
Holmes, whose premises always prove to be wrong
or insufficient, while his conclusions, owing to circum-
stances which he did not and could not foresee,
invariably come right. Could anything be clumsier
or more far-fetched than the business of the vinai-
grette in the second act? And has Scribe himself a
more wire-drawn piece of ingenuity than the recon-
ciliation with the husband effected by means of a
letter originally intended for the lover? an incident,
by the way, which is coolly annexed in the last act
of An Ideal Husband. And then the fatuous self-
complacency of the ineffable De Ryons! and his
intrusiveness ! and his impertinence ! No, truly,
L Ami des Femmes is not one of the happier in-
spirations of the author of Monsieur Alphonse and
frandllon.
But the French play, after all, is a document in
342 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
literary history. Its very faults belong to its epoch,
and interest us like the euphuism of Shakespeare
or the cynicism of Congreve. De Ryons, too, is
undeniably witty. He develops his theories with all
Dumas' vivacity of phrase and fertility of illustration.
The piece entertained me vastly, I remember, when a
certain M. Valbel played De Ryons at the St. James's
Theatre, some years ago, before an audience of about
twenty, all told. But when it is lifted from its literary
context, its sociological basis, and sent a-masquerading
in latter-day English dress, it becomes indescribably
phantasmal. The fault is not Mr. Carton's. He has
done his work with skill and ingenuity. Of course,
he has had to eliminate the central idea of his
original, and to account for the separation of Mrs.
Dennant from her husband on the conventional lines
of The Profligate or The Heavenly Twins. Mrs.
Dennant is not, like Jane de Simerose, a would-be
rebel against sex, but simply a lady of high moral
principle, who has learnt, on her wedding-day, that
her husband has been living with another woman.
Good and well; the particular case of Jane de
Simerose is not very interesting to us on this side of
the Channel; but since Mrs. Dennant is only a moral
protester, not a physical rebel since her position
would, or at least might, have been just the same had
she discovered her husband's delinquency months
after marriage, instead of on the marriage day the
" THE SQUIRE OF DAMES." 343
insistence on the exact circumstances of their separa-
tion becomes irrelevant and absurd. I cannot, for
obvious reasons, be quite explicit on this point;
suffice it to say that, at the end of Mr. Carton's
third act, the "On vous sauvera, Mademoiselle!"
addressed by De Ryons - to Madame de Simerose
is faithfully reproduced; while the stage direction,
" Elle cache ses yeux dans sa main, en rougissant de
ce dernier mot," is at least indicated, if not em-
phasised. Most of the audience did not catch the
implication, which had, doubtless, eluded the innocent
Mr. Redford as well. For myself, I have no objection
to it, except that in the English play it had become
meaningless. And this is merely typical of the whole
production. Its atmosphere is French, not English.
The postulates and conventions of this society are all
foreign to us. The French drama, especially of the
Second Empire, assumes the existence of an idle and
wealthy class in which love is the sole and avowed
preoccupation of men and women alike. It is an
openly polygamous and polyandrous world, the
difference between men and women being simply
that " tandis que don Juan ajoute tant qu'il peut a
sa liste, la femme efface tant qu'elle peut de la sienne."
In such a society, an "ami des femmes" of the type
here portrayed may possibly find exercise for his
curious talent. His business, as he himself says, is
to occupy in a woman's heart the interspace between
344 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
two passions, and occasionally (but this, it would
seem, is a rare and heroic effort) to "save" some one
who, from sheer force of fashion, is in danger of
throwing herself away upon a lover she does not love.
But no such society exists in England. The surface
preoccupations of our idle rich are quite other than
amatory. If we are not more monogamous than the
monde of the French drama (which may or may not
be a true representation of French society), we are at
least more hypocritical in our polygamy. The funda-
mental postulate of the society we meet in Dumas is
that intrigue is the rule, and marital or conjugal
fidelity the rare exception. Now, the postulate of
English society is quite the reverse; and the postulate
probably represents the fact with tolerable accuracy.
An English De Ryons, therefore, is impossible in two
senses. The intrigues on which he battens are with
us sporadic, not endemic; and even if he found some
fringe of society where, within the compass of one
man's circle of acquaintance, any considerable number
of w r omen required his friendly offices, the tone of his
comments and generalisations would still be inadmis-
sible. Without the text before me I cannot give
instances. The French text is no guide, for of
course the greater part of De Ryons's philosophisings,
which give the original play its meaning, have dis-
appeared from Mr. Carton's version. Quotation,
indeed unless of whole scenes would convey no
" THE SQUIRE OF DAMES." 345
adequate idea of the all-pervading unreality of thought
and expression. Everything is foreign, down to the
mere externals of manner, the method of receiving
and dismissing guests, for example. Why, the very
bore amusingly played by Mr. De Lange is a
French bore, not an English. Yet Heaven knows
we need not go abroad for the article !
As a piece of abstract acting, Mr. Wyndham's per-
formance was excellent, erring only, I thought, in
being a little more underbred than the part absolutely
demanded. Mr. Kilroy's way of holding his face
close up to that of the woman he is talking to is
surely not essential, even to a Squire of Dames.
Miss Mary Moore was pleasant enough in the part of
Mrs. Dennant; Mr. Frank Fenton made a marked
impression as her husband; Mr. Bernard Gould was
irrepressibly cheerful in the part of the gloomy and
suspicious lover; Mr. Alfred Bishop was good as an
absent-minded scientist; and Miss Fay Davis showed
cleverness and charm in the part of an American
millionairess. Such a name, by-the-bye, as "Zoe
Nuggetson " is, like the rest of the production, gro-
tesquely out of date an anachronism within an
anachronism. The Squire of Dames, indeed, is a
character we all know, but we do not recognise
him in this Ami des Femmes. Why could not Mr.
Wyndham have commissioned Mr. Carton to study
the English variety of the type in an English play ?
346 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
The burlesque of Trilby* introduced into Gentleman
Joe ought to be either worked up, or cut down, or
both. On the first night it was desperately dull.
Mr. Arthur Roberts has caught one or two of Mr.
Tree's attitudes, and his mask, of course, it was
easy to reproduce; but in the essential element of
successful mimicry the voice Mr. Roberts was all
astray. Miss Kitty Loftus has apparently no turn for
imitation. On the other hand, Mr. Eric Thorne
reproduced Mr. Hallard's Gecko with a faithfulness
too literal to be amusing.
XLIX.
"THE RIVALS" "NANNIE" "A MODEL TRILBY"
" MERRIFIELD'S GHOST."
2o// November.
THE Old Playgoer is a justly unpopular character.
He is a nuisance to himself and every one else. At an
old comedy in particular, he ought to be compelled to
leave his memory in the cloak-room, and not bring it,
like a wet blanket, into the stalls. A performance
should be judged on its own merits, not crushed by
comparisons necessarily unverifiable with an ideal
representation which never really occurred, but is
made up of select reminiscences from a dozen different
* November 7 still running.
" THE RIVALS." 347
revivals scattered over twice or thrice as many years.
I am, alas ! an Old Playgoer, and though I have not
what Mrs. Malaprop calls a "violent memory," I
cannot quite " illiterate " from its records certain
performances of The Rivals which but no ! " we
will not anticipate the past; our retrospections shall
be all to the present." The revival at the Court
Theatre* has at least the merit of being amusing.
There is life and spirit in the performance, and, out
of eleven characters of importance, eight are com-
petently, if not excellently, acted. Mrs. John Wood's
Mrs. Malaprop is irresistibly funny and must be quite
convincing to" any one but the Old Playgoer. He
curmudgeon that he is may possibly fancy her a
little too eager and emphatic, not quite possessed of
the large self-complacency with which Mrs. Malaprop
ought to savour the elegancies of her diction. This,
however, is really a criticism of perfection. Mrs.
Wood cannot remake her temperament, but she plays
the part like the accomplished comedian she is. Mr.
Farren is the established Sir Anthony of the day, and
one would certainly be puzzled to find a better on the
present acting list. To my thinking, he does not
live the character, but simply plays it for its points.
These, however, he makes with real mastery, rising in
several passages to a high pitch of virtuosity, at what-
ever sacrifice of verisimilitude. Mr. Sydney Brough
* November II December 21.
348 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
is a gay, pleasant, unaffected Jack Absolute, a little
lacking in air and manner, or, in other words, a trifle
modern; but as that is not a fault he can well be
expected to correct, it is useless to dwell upon it.
Mr. Brandon Thomas is a slow and stolid but
sufficiently amusing Sir Lucius; Mr. Sugden is a
passable Faulkland; and the servants are capitally
played by Mr. H. Nye Chart (Fag), Mr. W. Cheesman
(David), and Miss Marie Hudspeth (Lucy).
With every disposition to keep the Old Playgoer
in check, I cannot persuade myself that the three
remaining characters, Lydia, Julia, and Acres, are at
all adequately treated. Inadequate is precisely the
word for Miss Nancy Noel's Lydia Languish; it is
much too mild a term for Miss Violet Raye's
Julia, in which a great deal of pathetically earnest
effort is thrown away for lack of the most ele-
mentary skill. Acting, in Miss Raye's eyes, is
synonymous with affectation; she is as yet totally
innocent of the art which conceals art. This is all
the more regrettable as Julia is really a part worth
playing. She and Faulkland are the only characters
in which Sheridan makes any approach to serious
psychology. Faulkland is an admirable study who
does not know the type? and Julia, if we make
reasonable allowance for differences of phraseology,
is really a charming woman. They strike us as dull,
partly because they are figures of sober comedy who
" THE RIVALS." 349
have somehow strayed into a rattling farce (for so. we
should class The Rivals if Mr. Grundy or Mr. Carton
had written it), partly because they are almost always
carelessly played by actors who curse their fate in
having to condescend to such parts. Mr. Brander
Matthews tells us that when Jefferson revived the
play in New York, Julia was suppressed altogether !
On the other hand, when Mr. Bancroft and Mrs.
Bernard Beere played Faulkland and Julia at the
Haymarket, their scenes sprang to life, as it were, and
became at least as interesting as any in the play.
Miss Raye, to do her justice, showed no sense of
condescension in approaching Julia. She threw her
whole heart into the character; but unfortunately her
energies were wholly misdirected. Both she and Miss
Noel seemed possessed, among other errors, with the
idea that declamation was essential to old comedy;
whereas the very art of the thing lies in speaking the
formal phrases of the period in such a way as to make
them seem, for the moment, graceful and natural.
Mr. Arthur Williams was hopelessly out of place as
Acres. His rusticity was cockneyism; it was the
mud of Whitechapel, not of Devonshire, that clung to
his top-boots. If Acres must needs be vulgar (and I
don't see the necessity), at least it should not be with
the vulgarity of the music-hall. George Henry Lewes
says of the elder Farren (the father of the present Sir
Anthony) : " He was an actor whose fineness of
350 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
observation gave an air of intellectual superiority even
to his fools. I do not mean that he represented the
fools as intellectual ; but that his manner of repre-
senting them was such as to impress spectators with a
high sense of his intellectual finesse." Now, just as
there may be an intellectual foolishness, so there may
be, and ought to be, a refined vulgarity. And, in any
case, the vulgarity of Acres is not inherent in the
part, but the result of a fungoid growth of gags and
traditions. The keynote of the character, as your
latter-day comedian conceives it, is to be found in the
letter-scene, which is one mass of idiotic gags. To
the same traditional misreading of the part belong
the ridiculous and offensive imitations of Julia's
singing, dancing, and so forth, in which Acres in-
dulges in his first scene. In these Mr. Williams
simply wallowed, until one felt that Faulkland, so far
from being a supersensitive and testy lover, was a
miracle of patience. On the other hand, he omitted
a really clever and effective gag in the last act, where
Acres, seeing the supposed Beverley and his second
approaching, says to Sir Lucius, " We we we
won't run will we ? " The " Will we ? " is not in
Sheridan ; but spoken with a thin tremulous quaver
of hope, and an appealing look into the fire-eater's
eyes, it is irresistibly comic, and at the same time
quite in character. I profess no puritanical rever-
ence for Sheridan's text. Several of Mrs. Malaprop's
"NANNIE." 351
traditional gags are quite as good as anything
Sheridan gave her to say; and I would not for worlds
sacrifice David's transmutation of Sir Lucius O'Trigger
into Sir Lucifer O'Tiger. But I think the Mrs.
Malaprops of the future might well take the part as
they find it, and not try to out-Malaprop it from their
own fantasy; and I see no reason why we should
cherish with superstitious tenderness the silly and
vulgar traditions that deform the part of Acres.
Saturday evening at the Opera Comique was one
of marked vicissitudes. The audience, unruly at the
outset, became almost brutally hostile at the end of
the first play, and hysterically enthusiastic at the
end of the second. I do not know at this moment
whether Mr. T. G. Warren's two-act comedy, Nannie*
was played to its predestined close, or was ruthlessly
cut short in the flower of its youth. It seemed to me
that some one, bewildered by the tumult, casually
dropped the curtain about five minutes before its
time, and that the actors did not think it worth
while to have it up again and go on. They were
quite right. The play was an old-fashioned and
tedious " comedy-drama," in which it was impossible
to take any interest. Miss Farren will have to
strengthen this part of her programme. A Model
Trilby ; or a Day or fivo after Du Maurier^ (do you
* November 6 December 2.
t November 16 February I, 1896.
352 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
see the joke in the sub-title ?) is a more or less good-
humoured travesty of the popular novel and play,
written by Messrs. Brookneld and Yardley in rhymes
of more or less felicity, and provided by Mr. Meyer
Lutz with more or less sparkling music. There is no
general idea or consistent scheme in the travesty, but
many of the details are quite happily conceived, and
after the first five minutes the fun was seldom allowed
to flag. Miss Kate Cutler played Trilby gracefully
and pleasantly, though she soon dropped all attempt
to imitate Miss Baird, and looked, on the whole,
more like a reduced copy of Mrs. Langtry. Mr.
Robb Harwood, as Svengali, imitated Mr. Tree
faithfully enough, but, as it seemed to me, with
deficient spirit and fantasy. The Three Musketeers
were cleverly played by Mr. Farren Soutar, Mr. C. P.
Little, and Mr. George Antley; and Mr. Eric Lewis
showed humour and tact in the character of the
"Artist- Author." One of the great attractions of the
piece will undoubtedly be the Trilby Dance, devised
by Mr. VV. Ward, and very prettily danced by seven
very pretty girls. Miss Farren's appearance at the
close, and the storm of cheering which it evoked,
formed a rather pathetic close to what had been, on
the whole, a merry evening.
Mr. H. M. Paull's comedietta MerrifielcFs Ghost*
* November 13 January n, 1896; preceding The New Boy
after the withdrawal of Poor Mr. Potion.
"THE DIVIDED WAY." 353
which now precedes Poor Mr. Potion at the Vaude-
ville, is a well-conceived, neatly-written little piece,
though the dialogue is perhaps somewhat lacking in
dramatic fibre. It ought to have been better played,
and especially better stage-managed. One of the
lines struck me as really memorable. "He has no
talent ! " says Will Gordon of Merrifield, the famous
architect. " Ah," replies " Merrifield's Ghost " sadly,
"he has a great talent for doing without talent!"
There is plenty of that talent abroad in the world.
L.
"THE DIVIDED WAY."
27 th November.
THE critics who saw promise in Bogey were evidently
right I am not quite sure whether I was one of
them. Mr. H. V. Esmond is a born playwright, and
a man to be reckoned with. The Divided Way*
appears fitly on the boards of the St. James's Theatre,
which for the past fifteen years (by what we thought-
lessly term a coincidence, though the reasons for it
stare us in the face) has been the nursery and forcing-
house of the modern English drama. The only
"coincidence" in the matter is that Messrs. Hare
* November 23 December 14.
23
354 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
and Kendal, who had the luck and the discernment
to take Mr. Pinero by the hand at the outset of his
career, should have been followed by Mr. George
Alexander, who is by far the most courageous and
progressive of our younger managers. I am not at
all sure that Mr. Alexander did better service in
giving us The Second Mrs. Tanqueray than in pro-
ducing The Divided Way. Of course there is no
comparison between the two pieces. Bogey and The
Divided Way are Mr. Esmond's Money-Spinner and
Squire ; his Mrs. Tanqueray is yet to come, and we
must not be in too great a hurry for it. But, after
all, in producing Mrs. Tanqueray Mr. Alexander was
only giving loyal and able support to an acknowledged
master of the stage. It was a good thing to do, and
we are not ungrateful; but it is a still better thing to
give an untried man his first chance (for The Divided
Way was announced before the production of Bogey),
and to back your opinion of his talent as emphatically
as though he brought with him the prestige of a score
of successes. If Mrs. Tanqueray had failed, Mr.
Pinero would have had to bear the brunt of the
disaster; the experiment would in any case have been
a feather in Mr. Alexander's cap. But the failure of
The Divided Way would have fallen equally upon
manager and author; so that in producing the play
Mr. Alexander was running a great risk for a smaller
(immediate) reward. His insight and enterprise have
"THE DIVIDED WAY." 355
once more justified themselves; and this I say without
the least concern as to the state of the booking-sheet.
The play ought to be a financial success, and I trust
it will be; but the credit due to Mr. Alexander in no
way depends upon the length of its run. He has
done the right thing in producing it, and confirmed
his position as the manager whose career we all watch
with the keenest and most sympathetic interest and
expectancy.
There are immaturities of conception and crudities
of style in The Divided Way things which one
imagines Mr. Esmond looking back upon ten years
hence, and wondering, "How could I write that!"
But there are also things, not a few, on which he may
look back and say, "By Jove, that was plucky for a
beginner and it was right, too ! I was on the spot
that time !" He has gone straight to a simple, tragic
theme, and he has created a man and woman with
blood in their bodies and will in their brains. They
are not representatives of ideas or classes, still less
are they puppets acting out a preconceived intrigue.
There are times when they seem even to break away
from the author's control, to assume an independent
life, and to speak and act from individual instinct
and volition. In other words, Mr. Esmond has a
rare gift of character-projection, of detaching his
creations from himself. In analysis he is as yet
weak, or rather his bent is not as yet in that direction.
356 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
His play will, no doubt, be sneered at as sentimental,
because, without criticism, irony, or hesitancy of any
sort, he accepts passion as the central fact and force
of life. For my part, I welcome a return to that
antique point of view, and I rejoice in the youthful
sincerity which prevents Mr. Esmond from posing as
a disillusioned man of the world. His play is really
a renaissance tragedy in modern dress. Middleton
or Heywood might have treated the subject essen-
tially in the same spirit. Of modern masters, Mr.
Esmond takes after Echegaray rather than Ibsen.
Not that he imitates the Spanish playwright; indeed,
there is nothing to show that he has ever read a line
of him; I merely mean that the mainspring of his art
is will, not conscience, impulse, not reflection. And
the conjuncture he has chosen is tragic in the fullest
sense of the word, since, for these people, there is no
way out of it with honour and with life. Lois is
certainly the reverse of an admirable character; she
is what the French call an "instinctive," for whom
the terms "right" and "wrong" have no meaning;
but we feel that the instinct which renders the old
life impossible to her, which makes her shrink with
loathing from the hypocrisy of love, is anything but a
base one. She is reckless and ruthless, but she is
not ignoble; and the one point where she becomes
ignoble where she takes the vulgarest means to
wheedle a secret, and an inessential one to boot,
"THE DIVIDED WAY." 357
out of her husband is, I think, the chief of Mr.
Esmond's mistakes. Things as they are, then, are
impossible, and rightly impossible, to the "instinctive"
Lois; while to the idealist Gaunt a happiness founded
on the misery of others is more impossible still. In
the clash of these two impulses, the egoistic and the
social or altruistic, we have the primal and eternal
tragedy. Why Mr. Esmond should have chosen such
a title as The Divided Way I cannot conjecture.
The beauty of the theme, to my mind, is that there
is no division, no choice, of ways. The Blind Alley
would have been a less romantic title, but more
appropriate. These three people are indeed in a
blind alley, hemmed in between character on this
side and circumstance on that; and little by little the
pathway narrows, till it suddenly ends in a grave.
Let us now run rapidly through the play, and try to
distinguish its stronger from its weaker elements.
The influence of Dickens, so marked in Bogey,
reappears at the very outset in the names of the
characters. "General Humeden," "Gaunt Hume-
den," "Jay Grist" they are not precisely Dickens
names, but they are chosen with a Dickensish strain
after singularity. Dickensish, too, is much of the
comic relief (which is flagrantly unrelated to the
action), as well as the external and Christmassy
picturesqueness of the scenic effects. Peculiarly and
irritatingly Dickensish is the character of Mr. Swendal,
358 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
a first-cousin of Miss Mowcher and other grotesques.
But these are foibles which Mr. Esmond will outgrow,
as Mr. Pinero has outgrown them in serious work.
Here and there in the dialogue (but not very often)
we find touches of that metaphor-hunting which used
to be Mr. Pinero's besetting sin, and is still Mr.
Carton's. For instance, there is a passage at the
beginning of the second act where Gaunt and Lois
play battledore and shuttlecock, through a whole
series of speeches, with a metaphor about the Children
in the Wood not a very good one to begin with.
Moreover, there are one or two lapses into con-
ventional sentimentality, especially in the last act;
but the serious scenes as a whole are marked by a
sobriety, and even distinction, of style which is of
good omen for Mr. Esmond's future.
Just at the beginning, there is an unnecessary
artificiality of exposition; but that once over, the
story is skilfully told. We are a little taken aback
at first when Lois selects her father-in-law as the
confidant of her passion. But here Mr. Esmond is
rightly daring. This unflinching openness belongs
to, and partly redeems, her character. The manner
of Jay Grist's arrival in the first act is conventional
enough, but the scene in which he blurts out his
friend's secret is ingenious, dramatic, masterly. For
a moment we think, " Why doesn't she stop him ? "
and then realise with a little thrill that this is what
"THE DIVIDED WAY." 359
her soul is thirsting for, and that she would not stop
him for worlds. Strong and original, though perhaps
unnecessarily crude, is the scene between Gaunt and
Lois in the second act; and, but for one slip of the
tongue, as it were, Gaunt's outburst of irrepressible
joy in confessing their love, even to his father, would
be the finest thing in the play. It was just beginning
to grip and move me deeply when one luckless little
word suddenly struck me cold again. " My bonny
girl! my bonny girl!" cried Gaunt; and the word
"bonny" seemed to my ear an intolerably false note.
The second half of the second act is distinctly the
weakest part of the play. Gaunt's hypothetical appeal
to his brother is conventional, improbable, and ex-
ceedingly dangerous; and the wheedling scene between
Lois and Jack is not only out of character, but in-
sufficiently motived. The third act suffers from a
curious redundancy of dialogue. Gaunt and Lois
keep repeating, " I am going alone," " I am coming
with you," until we wonder whether the antiphony is
to be continued for ever, like a recurring decimal.
But when once they shake off this spell, the scene
becomes nobly and profoundly tragic. The process
of emotion is absolutely convincing in its seeming
inconsequence, and there is insight as well as
originality in the conception of the woman who has
not the courage to accept death deliberately along
with her lover, yet can snatch at it alone, five minutes
360 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
afterwards, to escape the "forgiveness" of her husband.
Mr. Esmond has given Lois two unpretending little
speeches of exquisite beauty and fitness. " I was
afraid," she says, "just like a common woman;" and
when Gaunt cries, " Don't you see that I am dying in
order to escape from you?" she answers, "Oh! that
sounds cruel, but it isn't." This is dramatic poetry-
not quotations from Tennyson or rhapsodies about
the stars.
Mr. Alexander plays Gaunt with sincerity and force,
and Miss Millard, who looks the part of Lois to
admiration, acts it conventionally, but not ineffectively.
It is rather odd that Mr. Esmond, an actor himself,
should have turned out two such ludicrously " bad
parts" as General Humeden and his younger son.
The General scarcely gets a word in edgewise; he
has nothing to do but to look shocked, and that Mr.
Vernon does with dignity and discretion. As for
Jack, the balance of the play certainly loses by his
being an utter nonentity; and, in any case, one sees
no reason why such a thoroughly uncongenial part
should have been assigned to Mr. Allan Aynesworth.
Mr. Vincent was good as Dr. Macgrath, and Miss
Violet Lyster played Phyllis brightly enough, but
rather inaudibly at times. Mr. Herbert Waring was
excellent, and indeed invaluable, in the part of Jay
Grist. His periodical appearances and disappearances
in the last act are technically indefensible, and might
" THE MANXMAN." 361
have proved dangerous in the hands of a less skilful
actor.
LI.
"THE MANXMAN " " THE MISOGYNIST" "AN
OLD GARDEN."
tfh December.
THE playbill does not tell us who is responsible for
the adaptation of The Manxman* produced at the
Shaftesbury Theatre; but from Mr. Lewis Waller's
speech at the close, it would seem that this version, as
well as the earlier version which I saw on its first
night at Leeds, is the work of Mr. Wilson Barrett.
Be this as it may, the second state of the play is worse
than the first, and for a very apparent reason. Pete
was the central figure of the country version, for Mr.
Barrett himself played Pete; in town, Mr. Lewis
Waller plays Philip, who is accordingly thrust into the
leading place. Now, for theatrical purposes, Pete is
and must be the protagonist. If you are to have a
Pete at all, he must take the centre of the stage. He
is a ready-made character, appealing to ready-made
idealisms; and those whose chief pleasure in the
theatre lies in the indulgence of idealistic sympathy
are merely bored by complexities of motive and
* November 18 November 30.
362 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
ethical half-tints. On the other hand, those who are
capable of taking an interest in the self-torturing
irresolution of a man like Philip regard the magnani-
mous mariner as a childish personage, belonging to
the infancy of dramatic art. Thus the play in its
present form falls between two stools. In the country
version it was a sound and simple domestic drama,
rising above the level of Princess's and Adelphi
melodrama only in so far as its action was carried on
without the aid of coincidences, physical accidents, or
even deliberate villainy. In the town version a lame
attempt is made to intrude a psychological study into
the domestic drama. The author robs Pete to enrich
Philip, and dissatisfies one section of the public with-
out satisfying any other. The interest cannot be
evenly divided between two such personages. If
Philip is to be the centre of the composition, like
Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter, then Pete
must be painted out of the picture and designed
afresh. As it is, this crudely, aggressively sympa-
thetic figure, for ever thumping the big drum before
the booth of sentiment, fascinates and absorbs those
whom it does not bore and annoy. If we give him
an inch of space, he inevitably takes an ell. The
attempt to transfer the interest to Philip simply
displaces the centre of gravity and makes the play
heel over like a ship when its cargo has shifted.
This would hold good even if the author had been
"THE MANXMAN." 363
successful in portraying the soul-struggles of Philip.
As a matter of fact, the methods of melodrama prove
hopelessly inapplicable to analytic purposes. Philip
is no clearer or more interesting in this play than in
the former one; to expand a part is not always to
illuminate a character. Moreover, the greater pro-
minence given to Manx customs and ceremonials in
the new version only heightens its unreality. Worst
of all, the adapter has apparently conceived the luck-
less idea of trying to make Philip sympathetic at the
expense of Kate, with the result that the first act, in
Sulby Glen, becomes an outrageously and incredibly
vulgar seduction-scene, in which the woman is the
wooer. So far from rendering Philip sympathetic,
it makes him ridiculous and contemptible. We feel
that a man with any sense of decency would have
turned away in pitying disgust from this hysterical
hoyden. Miss Florence West, let me hasten to say,
was in nowise to blame. She simply acted the
part set down for her, neither refining nor vulgarising
it. She could not escape from the plain words put
in. her mouth; for instance, this soliloquy: "Oh, I
must keep him even if I ! (Covers her face
with her hands. Presently she looks up again. ) And
yet, why not ? He would never leave me then ! Oh,
I must find Philip ! " and she does. I am not quite
certain of the first phrase, " I must keep him " ; it
was to that effect, but the words may have been
364 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
different ; the rest of the speech I took down, word
for word, at the moment.
Miss West was rather overweighted in Kate's later
scenes; Mr. Lewis Waller did all that could be done
with the essentially ungrateful part of Philip; Mr.
G. W. Cockburn made an excellent Pete; Mr.
Fernandez was effective as usual in the part of Caesar
Cregeen ; and Miss Kate Phillips played Nancy very
brightly.
The St. James's Theatre has been, as I said last
week, the nursery of the modern drama; but it is not
to the nursery of the drama that one looks for the
drama of the nursery. There is really no other term
for The Misogynist* by Mr. G. W. Godfrey, which
ushers in The Divided Way. Here and there a happy
turn of dialogue reminds us that Mr. Godfrey is
capable of better things; but otherwise the play is
feeble and conventional beyond expression. From
the moment Mr. Corquodale, the old woman-hater,
looked at his nephew's wife, and mumbled to himself
that there was something strangely familiar in her face,
was there a soul in the audience who did not know
exactly what was coming? We knew that the woman-
hater had been jilted in his youth; we knew that the
lady had married a rich man, without vouchsafing any
explanation; we knew that the nephew's wife was her
daughter. Nay, more we knew exactly why the
* November 23 December 14.
" THE MISOGYNIST." 365
faithless fair had thrown Corquodale over: it could
only be to save her father from ruin and disgrace, by
marrying the man whose name he had forged, or who
held the mortgages on his ancestral estate. On the
other hand, we did not know we now can never
learn why she did not explain this to her disconsolate
lover. Most of the novelists and playwrights who
have told the story have represented that she thought
he would feel her desertion less if he were left to
despise her as a heartless and mercenary minx; but
Mr. Godfrey (and this is his sole originality) does not
even condescend to this explanation. For the rest,
he sticks to the orthodox lines of the story without
the smallest variation. I could see the conductor of
the orchestra waiting eagerly for the word " mother "
the cue for the slow music and I was, oh ! so
thankful when it came, bringing with it the wind-
ing-up of the foolish and frowsy old anecdote. Nor
did the acting redeem it. Mr. Alexander's notion of
senility is founded, not on Nature, but on Sir Henry
Irving, whose method of depicting old age he repro-
duced (no doubt unconsciously) with a faithfulness
that would have done credit to a professional mimic.
I have never seen a more curious example of the way
in which Sir Henry Irving's personality imposes itself
on all who pass through his school. Mr. Allan
Aynesworth and Miss Ellis Jeffreys, as the nephew
and niece, played their trivial parts pleasantly enough ;
366 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
and Mr. Vincent, made up like the late Ernest Renan,
was conventionally clever as the indispensable old
servant.
Compared with Mr. Godfrey's musty sentimentalism,
An Old Garden* by Mr. Hill Davies, which now
precedes Miss Broivn at Terry's Theatre, seems posi-
tively fresh and original. It is, indeed, an agreeable
trifle, not particularly novel either in subject or treat-
ment, yet by no means such a foregone futility as The
Misogynist. The theme is essentially that of Mr.
Gilbert's Siveethearts, but it is handled in a totally
different fashion. If Mr. Hill Uavies intends to follow
up this first little success in dramatic authorship, he
ought to beware of the soliloquy, a clumsy and out-
worn device, and especially of the overheard soliloquy,
which is totally indefensible. Miss Mona Oram,
who plays the heroine, has a pleasant appearance
and manner, and shows a good deal of quiet
intelligence.
LII.
" THE COMEDY OF ERRORS."
WE have to thank the Benchers of Gray's Inn and
the Elizabethan Stage Society (not forgetting Mr.
Arnold Dolmetsch) for a very interesting and pleasant
* November 12 February 8, 1896.
" THE COMEDY OF ERRORS." 367
evening. There are two extant buildings in London
in which we know that plays of Shakespeare's were
acted during his lifetime. On Innocents' Day,
December 28th, 1594, as we learn from the Gesia
Grayorum, "a Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his
Menechmus, was played by the players" in Gray's
Inn Hall, which was even then a quarter of a century
old. It is believed (but this is only a probable con-
jecture) that the players were the Lord Chamberlain's
Company, to which Shakespeare belonged. What is
certain is that the Lord Chamberlain's men had on
that very day performed before Queen Elizabeth at
Greenwich; so we may, if we please, imagine Shake-
speare and his fellows acting The Comedy of Errors
after the Queen's midday dinner, and then coming
up to town (they would have ample time, for the
Christmas revellers kept late hours) to repeat the same
piece at Gray's Inn. The second of the two buildings
is the still nobler hall of the Middle Temple (pardon
the patriotism of a truant but not unmindful Templar),
where a nobler comedy, Twelfth Night to wit, was
performed on February 2nd, 1602. Manningham,
whose diary records the fact, mentions the resem-
blance between this play and "the Commedy of
Errores;" whence we may conjecture that it was
the popularity of the earlier and cruder play that
induced Shakespeare to rehandle the theme in this
glorified form. Some years ago Miss Elizabeth
368 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Robins and Miss Marion Lea were anxious to re-
produce Tivelfth Night, after the fashion of the
Elizabethan stage, in the Middle Temple Hall; but
the consent of the authorities could not be obtained.
The Benchers of Gray's Inn have shown a more
liberal and artistic spirit in acceding to the request
of the Elizabethan Stage Society, and the event of
Saturday night ought to be set down to their credit
in a modern Gesta Grayorum. The E.S.S., it is
true, had allowed the tercentenary of the recorded
performance to pass, by nearly a year; but why
should we be slaves to anniversaries? Had they
determined to wait for the fourth centenary, I fear
some of us would have missed a curious and memor-
able experience. Regarded in the dry light of reason,
indeed, such a performance seems a pathetically im-
potent protest against the ineluctable tyranny of
Time. In vain we repeated to ourselves that these
very rafters and that very screen had probably echoed
the very voice of Shakespeare, speaking some of the
words we were now listening to (one fancies he would
play either the Duke or ^Egeon). The effort to
realise this fact, not only intellectually but imagina-
tively, seemed to make the past more phantasmal,
more irrecoverable, than ever. It is a self-defeating
sentiment that leads us to linger around inanimate
objects which have merely stood in casual propin-
quity to the great spirits that are gone which have
"THE COMEDY OF ERRORS." 369
neither impressed them nor received from them any
abiding impression. Stratford made Shakespeare,
Scott made Abbotsford. The Warwickshire town,
in its soft Midland landscape, was an essential factor
in the poet's psychology, while the pseudo-baronial
mansion by the Tweed is an expression of the
romancer's spirit, a melancholy monument of its
greatness and its weakness. But Gray's Inn Hall
did nothing for Shakespeare, received nothing from
him. The. permanence of its wood and stone, so far
from really bringing us nearer to him, serves rather
as a sardonic memento of the evanescence of humanity.
Some one has preserved a window-pane from Carlyle's
Edinburgh lodging, and the relic, duly attested, is
offered to the reverence of hero-worshippers. Sup-
pose it true that Carlyle did once breathe upon it
can it do more than remind us that he has vanished
like that breath-mist ? Not less transient and fugitive
was Shakespeare's connection with Gray's Inn Hall;
and the attempt to replace his figure against that
background merely tantalises the imagination. No
vibration of his voice lingers in unremembering joist
or wainscot. These mute survivors merely tell us
that he is dead. We have to send our imagination
abroad through the English-speaking, or rather the
Teutonic, world, from the crowded theatres of un-
numbered cities to the miner's hut and the frontier-
man's cabin, before we can give their stolid sophistry
24
3/0 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
the lie, and tell them that he lives, and will live when
they have mouldered to dust.
But the Hall undoubtedly serves the purpose of
the Elizabethan Stage Society in helping us to realise
the conditions of a sixteenth-century representation.
And, as good luck will have it, The Comedy of Errors*
is of all Shakespeare's works that which loses least
and gains most in modern eyes by absence of scenery
and conventionality of costume. The play is a
classical farce recklessly romanticised; but it pre-
serves so much of its classic character that the scene
remains indefinite simply "Ephesus: a public place."
Then, again, the plot is so unblushingly extravagant
that anything like illusion is from the outset impos-
sible. To attempt it could only be to force upon us
the consciousness of disillusion. The intrigue is
a sort of dramatic diagram, an essay in the pure
mathematics of situation. The poet seems to say,
"Admitting such-and-such inadmissible postulates,
let us work out the resultant series of impossible
possibilities." Plautus is content with one pair of
twins, and takes the trouble to explain at some length
how the two Menaechmi came to be called by the
same name. Shakespeare gives us the square of the
coincidence, so to speak, by attaching indistinguish-
able slaves to the indistinguishable masters, and
airily omits to explain why both masters are called
* Performed three times December 6, 7, and 9.
"THE COMEDY OF ERRORS." 3/1
Antipholus and both lackeys Dromio. Observe that
we have here no real analogy with the case of
the Aniphitruo, in which Jupiter and Mercury
miraculously assume the forms, and deliberately take
the names, of Amphitryon and Sosia. There is all
the difference in the world between a miracle and a
coincidence. Then Shakespeare piles coincidence
upon coincidence in the arrival of the father (who
replaces the Prologue of the Latin comedy) and
the recognition of the mother a singularly frigid
invention, and quite ineffective because quite un-
prepared. Thus the whole fable is so remote from
even imaginable reality that we willingly dispense
with all realism of presentation, and regard the stage
as a sort of chess-board on which pieces and pawns
(and the pieces, as in chess, are mostly in pairs) work
out a certain problem in a given number of moves.
If all Shakespeare's works were like The Comedy of
Errors, I should willingly assent to the doctrine of
the E.S.S. that we ought to get rid of scenic apparatus
and revert to the bare platform of the Globe or the
Blackfriars. Unfortunately for the E.S.S., but fortu-
nately for the world at large, The Comedy of Errors
stands alone in the abstractness, if I may call it so
of its scene and matter.
Far be it from me, however, to throw cold water
on the enthusiasm of the E.S.S. Though I cannot
accept their principle as applied to Shakespearian
3/2 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
productions at large, I heartily approve their practice,
and hope that they will continue their interesting
revivals of the more neglected plays. The costuming
of The Comedy of Errors was excellent and really
instructive, and the acting was, for amateurs, most
creditable. One of the Dromios (I quite forget
which) was a real comedian. It interested me to
note that whereas I had always conceived it next
door to impossible to find or make two pairs of
actors even passably alike, as a matter of fact the two
Antipholuses and the two Dromios were to me, at no
great distance from the scene, actually indistinguish-
able. Of course, I was vaguely conscious of certain
differences between them; but it would have needed
a special effort of attention (from which I carefully
abstained) to fix the differences in my mind so as to
enable me to tell, when one of them entered, whether
he was of Ephesus or of Syracuse. I was effectually
enveloped in the " general mist of error." To this
end the broad brims of the Antipholuses' hats con-
tributed most ingeniously. The stage management
might have been better in the opening scene it was
quite ridiculous and it is hard to see why the E.S.S.
should deliberately desert its strongest position in
making huge and quite unnecessary cuts in the last
act. On the whole, then, I remain unconverted to
the general theory that scenery and accurate costume
are hindrances to the proper enjoyment of Shake-
" THE COMEDY OF ERRORS." 373
speare, and that amateurs act better than actors.
Strictly speaking, the comedy was not acted at all,
but only more or less intelligently recited. But the
effect was so picturesque and interesting that I beg to
repeat in earnest a proposal which was freely mooted
in jest to wit, that the picture should be completed
by the audience, too, appearing in ruffs and farthin-
gales. The black coats and white neckties were
deplorably discordant. If the Benchers of Gray's
Inn should be minded to give another gaudy-night
of the kind, I do not see why they should not write
Elizabethan Costume on the cards of invitation. I
am not much of a masquerader myself " parcus
ludorum cultor et infrequens " but for such a
solemnity I would don doublet and hose as cheerfully
as that redoubtable brigand, Mr. Tupman, squeezed
himself into his green velvet jacket with a two-inch tail.
An ingenious and humorous comedietta by Mr.
W. D. Howells now precedes Mrs. Ponderbury's Past
at the Avenue. It is entitled A Dangerous Ruffian*
and deals with the exploit of an absent-minded pro-
fessor who knocks down and robs an inoffensive old
gentleman, under the impression that he is recovering
his watch from a daring pickpocket. The principal
character, however, is not the Professor, but his
hysterically adoring spouse, who is cleverly played by
Miss Florence Harrington.
* November 30 January 2, 1896.
374 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
LIII.
"THE GREATEST OF THESE "MADAME"
" KITTY CLIVE."
i8//$ December.
AT Brighton on Saturday last, I had the pleasure of
seeing Mr. and Mrs. Kendal in a four-act play by
Mr. Sydney Grundy entitled The Greatest of These
(please observe that the dash is an essential part of
the title). The Kendals are doing good service in
taking round the country so serious and so humane a
piece of work. It is worth a mint of Queen's Shillings
and a snowstorm of Scraps of Paper. Sooner or later
it is certain to be seen in town, and it will be time
enough then to consider it in detail. Meanwhile, let
me simply say that the character of Mr. Armitage,
J.P., is to my mind the strongest thing Mr. Grundy
has ever done. No more vigorous and penetrating
study of the honest, well-meaning, " liberal " and yet
destructive Pharisee has been seen on our stage. I am
sure Mr. Grundy will not think that I am impugning
his originality if I call Mr. Armitage the English
variant of Ibsen's Consul Bernick. The resemblance
has very likely never occurred to him, but it exists
none the less, not only in the general conception of
the character, but even in details. For instance,
"THE GREATEST OF THESE 3/5
Armitage's belief in the superior virtue and intelligence
of the provinces, as compared with London, is an
exact parallel to Bernick's belief in Norway's moral
exaltation over the " great communities " ; and when
Mrs. Armitage says to him in the last act, "You have
never known your son, and he has not known you.
. . . You haven't lost but found him," she is using
almost the very words applied in the last act of The
Pillars of Society to the relation between Bernick and
Olaf. I regret to add that Armitage's conversion is
almost not quite as sudden as Bernick's. The
title sufficiently indicates the bent of the piece. It is
a strong and even a daring attack upon the inhuman
egoism of respectability an attack so forcible in its
outspokenness that it fairly carried the sympathies
even of a chilly afternoon audience. It well deserved
the applause which greeted it ; and yet (now for the
inevitable grumble !) I think it would be a better play
if Mr. Grundy, like a good fairy, would or could grant
me three wishes. I wish in the first place that he
could have got on without the forgery business ; it is
conventional and far from convincing. In the second
place, I could wish for a little more clearness of
definition in his theology or metaphysics. He uses
" God " and " Nature " as practically interchangeable
terms, which I take to be begging the question. The
very point on which Mr. and Mrs. Armitage differ is
how far the dictates of God coincide with those of
376 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Nature. Thirdly, and most especially, I wish his
characters were a little less rhetorical in their methods
of expression. One and all, they "talk like a book,"
though in Laurence's case the book happens to be a
slang dictionary. Mrs. Armitage in particular rejoices
in a quite Ciceronian gift of antithesis, and employs
all the elisions and inversions of the accomplished
orator. For instance, " Your children, your respecta-
bility, your position I was forgiven for these ! "
And again, " Can I make myself a new being, with a
new heart in my body and a new brain in my head ?
Morality says Yes; Religion, Yes; but Nature NO! "
And yet again, "I might urge some frail words, not
in my own excuse words I have never spoken, words
I do not wish to speak." In real life people do not
" urge " words at all ; that only occurs in provincial
leading articles; and it is mere affectation of Mrs.
Armitage to call her words "frail" they are from
first to last singularly robust. In one or two places
she even drops into poetry :
" Where are the brave ideals of old days ?
Where are the dreams that once we dreamed together ? "
I declare these lines have such a swing about them
that it is quite a disappointment to the ear when she
omits to complete the stanza, somewhat in this fashion :
"Why do those brows, that should be wreathed with bays,
Show, in their stead, the recreant white feather ? "
" MADAME." 377
And Mr. Armitage is not much behind his wife in
his command of the graces of style. It is distinctly
unusual to hear a provincial banker speak of
"Laurence, to whom all forms of sin and evil are
as unreal as the phantoms of mythology ; " and it
is nothing less than amazing to find this worthy
chapel-goer steeped to the lips in Tennyson, quoting
him to his pastor as though the Idylls were Holy Writ,
and bursting out, when he realises his own Pharisaism,
" / am the curse, not Lancelot nor another ! " I beg
Mr. Grundy to believe that I recognise and value the
vigour and eloquence of his dialogue in the chief
scenes of this play; but oratorical eloquence is one
thing, dramatic eloquence another, and I cannot but
think that he is apt to overlook the distinction.
Miss Farren's management at the Opera Comique
takes us back to the palmy days of the Gaiety. Mr.
James T. Tanner's three-act "absurdity," Madame*
is just such a piece as Mr. Hollingshead might have
selected to "play the people in" to a popular bur-
lesque. It is like a nightmare brought on by a surfeit
of French farces; but it is tolerably inoffensive, and
people are found to laugh at it. That capital
comedian Mr. Eric Lewis manages to be fairly
amusing in the part of Mr. Galleon. At the Royalty,
the hundredth night of The ChiliWidow was celebrated
by the production of a one-act play by Mr. Frankfort
* December 7 February I, 1896.
378 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Moore entitled Kitty Clive.* It is like a score of
other plays in which some legendary actor or actress
is made to give a taste of .his or her quality in private
life; and it differs from its predecessors chiefly in its
total lack of ingenuity or plausibility. However, it
affords Miss Irene Vanbrugh an opportunity for some
agreeable high-jinks which seemed to entertain the
audience. There was one thrilling moment when Miss
Vanbrugh-Clive undertook to show us how Garrick,
as Hamlet, delivered the address to the Ghost. Un-
fortunately she broke off after the first line, and left
me simply gasping with disappointment.
LIV.
"ONE OF THE BEST."
2$th December.
WHEN it has been stated that One of the Best\ at the
Adelphi is a good and effective play of its kind
certainly one of the best of recent years there
remains very little to be said of it. The ability
displayed by Messrs. Seymour Hicks and George
Edwardes is of the purely spectacular and stage-
managerial kind, not in the least dramatic. There
* December II still running,
t December 21 still running.
"ONE OF THE BEST." 379
is little or no invention in the play. The skill of
the authors lies in seizing upon a picturesque and
impressive incident the degradation of Captain
Dreyfus and forcing it, not without violence, into
an English setting. In doing so they shrink from
no extreme of physical or moral improbability. The
English Dreyfus must, of course, be innocent of the
treachery attributed to him, so he has to be provided
with a double, and we are asked to assume a strong
personal resemblance between Mr. Terriss (the hero)
and Mr. Abingdon (the villain). This is a pretty
steep assumption to begin with. Then, that the
villain may gain access to the safe in which the War
Office plans are deposited, the daughter of the officer
entrusted with their charge has to be represented
as a most abandoned and repulsive criminal. Poor
Miss Millward ! never was a more hateful part assigned
to an Adelphi heroine. The authors' efforts to keep
Esther Coventry within the pale of sympathy only
made her more intolerable. We should have liked
her better as an out-and-out villainess. She cannot
possibly be deceived by her villain-lover's represen-
tation that his object in stealing the plans is only (!)
to swindle the Government out of ^"5000. Unless
she is a mere idiot, she must know that she is
betraying not only her father, but her country. Then
in order to screen her lover, she perjures herself
through thick and thin, and suffers an innocent man
380 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
who has done her no harm to be subjected to an
infamous punishment and condemned to penal
servitude for life. And finally, there being no one
else left to betray, she turns round and betrays her
lover, not out of remorse or any sort of compunction,
but simply because he declines to marry her. I must
say the hero's magnanimity in imploring her father
(and the audience) to pardon her seems to me mis-
placed. She ought to be handed over to Professor
Lombroso to adorn his gallery of female delinquents.
A character of more unredeemed turpitude has never
been presented to the execrations of a British gallery.
Yet such is Miss Millward's empire over the affections
of the Adelphi gods that they positively applaud her !
This Esther Coventry is the pivot of the whole action,
and in designing her the authors have simplified their
task with a happy audacity, on which I beg to
congratulate them. The scene of the robbery is a
stirring piece of melodrama, and the court-martial is
fairly effective, though it would be much more so if
Lieutenant Keppel made some slight attempt to
defend himself, instead of indulging in mere futile
protestation and declamation. But the great attrac-
tions of the play are of course the scenes representing
the hero's degradation and reinstatement, the best-
regulated pieces of military spectacle I remember to
have seen on the stage. The degradation was really
moving after its fashion, and it seemed to me that
"ONE OF THE BEST." 381
Mr. Terriss here attained a genuine dignity and
sincerity of emotional expression, not always to be
found in his acting.
Mr. Abingdon, as the villain, had a more than
usually ungrateful part, and I must protest against
the cowardly brutality with which the mob of soldiers
and rustics is suffered to treat him at the close. Such
outbreaks of bestial ferocity do, indeed, occur, but
that is no reason why they should be presented with
approbation on the stage. When the benevolent
clergyman appeared on the scene, I did not doubt
that he was going to rescue the defenceless and
cowering wretch of a villain, and put to shame the
dastardly crew who were torturing him. But not a
bit of it ! After a feeble protest, he left them to
their savage sport ; and no doubt the gods went away
full of admiration for this mob of sturdy Britons, and
prepared to imitate them on the first opportunity.
Mr. L. Delorme and Mr. Athol Forde played two
minor characters very cleverly, the one a French spy,
the other an octogenarian rustic. Mr. Harry Nicholls
was exceedingly droll as a Highlander from Hamp-
stead (he said Hampshire, but that must have been a
slip of the tongue), and Miss Vane Featherston, as
the comic maidservant, played up to him very brightly.
By the way, Mr. Nicholls's allusion to some supposed
jealousy between the Commander-in-Chief and another
distinguished General (both mentioned by name)
382 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
struck me as being in execrable taste ; but since the
sagacious Mr. Redford sanctions it, I suppose it is
little short of high treason to say so. It seems to me
that the one conceivable utility of a censorship would
be to check silly and offensive personalities of this
sort. The speech may very probably be a "gag";
but whether Mr. Redford did, or did not, pass it, the
fact remains that our beneficent censorship failed to
prevent its being spoken on the stage. Were it not
that Mr. Redford is supposed to relieve us of all
responsibility in these matters, the slight hiss which
greeted it would doubtless have been much more
emphatic. Hence the popularity of the censorship
with low-comedians, on whom it places no check,
while it protects them against the censorship of the
decent-minded public.
EPILOGUE.
THE Epilogue to 1895 must be one of mingled gratu-
lation and warning. The actual record of the year
is highly inspiriting; but a danger seems to loom
ahead. It is not a new danger; it has been descried
and charted long ago. But the very rapidity of our
advance has brought us visibly nearer to it, and we
shall presently have to deal with it in earnest.
The condition of the theatre as a whole is dis-
tinctly healthier than at any time since the decline
of the Patent Houses. In all departments save one
the general tendency is upwards. The one exception
is the so-called " Legitimate." Sir Henry Irving has
done splendid service to his profession, and has
amply earned the reward which this year has brought
him ; but he has not made Shakespeare live as he ought
to live on the stage of his native country. Four or five
sumptuous revivals in a decade are not enough to
keep the art of Shakespearian acting alive. With
many of us, it does not survive even as a memory:
hence the apparent success of a thoroughly mediocre,
and in some parts indescribably feeble, revival of
384 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Romeo and Juliet at the Lyceum. We have also had
The Two Gentlemen of Verona and A Midsummer
Night's Dream cruelly mutilated by Mr. Daly, but
resuscitated, in some measure, by the cleverness of
his company. Except for one or two amateur experi-
ments, this is our whole Shakespearian record;* and
for the rest, our Elizabethan, Caroline, and Georgian
repertory is represented by The Rivals at the Court
Theatre ! Such are the short and simple annals of
the classic drama. What we want is, in addition to
the Lyceum, a theatre like Sadler's Wells during the
Phelps period more modern in its methods, indeed,
but conducted in a like artistic spirit.
The " Legitimate " apart, there is progress on every
hand. Even spectacular melodrama seems (or is this
an illusion ?) a shade less imbecile than it used to be.
In the department of farce we have at least shaken off
the yoke of France. A notably successful adaptation
is now exceedingly rare in the record of 1895 The
Chili Widow stands alone. The most popular farces
of the past three or four years have all been of home
manufacture ; and though none of them (since Mr.
Pinero turned serious) has been of the highest quality,
* It is true, however, that Sir Henry Irving gave a few per-
formances of The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado, and Macbeth,
by way of rehearsals for America. Sir Henry's habit of running
through his repertory during the summer months is an excellent
one, tending as it does to break through the exclusive domin-
ance of the long run.
EPILOGUE. 385
we have quite a little group of writers who are develop-
ing a pretty knack of touching off the humorous
aspects of life. Upon the " musical comedy " of the
In Town, Shop Girl, Gentleman Joe, and Artisfs
Model type, which is swamping our lighter theatres, it
is impossible to look with much complacency; but it
may at least be said that there are excellent possi-
bilities in the form, and that even the tawdry and
vulgar medleys we now see are greatly preferable to
the brazen burlesques which they have supplanted.
Who would willingly go back to the time when a
popular manager loved to advertise himself as a
" dealer in legs," when pink-limbed priestesses of the
"sacred lamp" used to gabble screeds of halting
doggerel, crammed with puns which they did not
understand, and when not even the most beautiful
and sacred theme in mythology, history, or poetry
was safe from the debasing clutch of the graceless and
illiterate parodist? The "musical comedy" of to-
day has at least the negative merit of not being a
hideous leprosy on the fair face of literature.
It is, however, in the sphere of social comedy or
drama that the advance is most palpable. Even now
one speaks of the " dramatic revival," not with assured
faith, but rather with a tremulous hope. It is so
difficult to attain a true perspective in matters of
art, and especially in matters theatrical. So many
" dramatic revivals " have fizzed, sputtered, flared, and
2 5
386 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
gone out like Roman candles, leaving only unsightly
and unsavoury exuviae behind them. Virginius, in
the eighteen-twenties, heralded a dramatic revival ;
so did The Lady of Lyons in the late 'thirties ; and
behold ! they both stink in the nostrils of to-day.
More real, perhaps, was the revival marked by Society
and Caste; yet it too died away, and we had to fall
back upon imported Diplomacies and Pink Dominoes.
Such experiences may well render us wary of halloo-
ing before we are out of the wood. But the present
movement appears to me to differ from these others
in that it is (with all respect to Mr. Henry Arthur
Jones) a "nascence" rather than a "renascence." It
gives us a form of drama which we have never had
before.
Robertsonian comedy was only the old comedy
of manners in a new guise the comedy of no-
manners it was wittily called. It offered no criticism
of life or of social institutions, beyond an asser-
tion of the excellent but somewhat superficial
maxim that fond hearts are more than coronets and
simple faith than Norman blood. In the later works
of Mr. Pinero, on the other hand, we have a drama
of ideas, in those of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones shall
we say a melodrama of ideas ? All the tedious talk
we have heard about "problem plays" and "sex
plays " means nothing more than that the drama is at
last beginning to seize upon and interpret the genuinely
EPILOGUE. 387
dramatic aspects of modern life. It is significant that
while the Robertsonian comedy was faithful to the
age-old formula, and always ended with the marriage
of one or two pairs of lovers, the new drama is much
more apt to take marriage (if not the Divorce Court)
for its starting-point. While the love idyll was the in-
dispensable nucleus of every play, monotony followed
close on the heels of each new departure, and any-
thing like a searching psychology was impossible.
The dramatist's province has now been extended so
as to include every form and phase of the relationship
between man and woman ; or, in other words, the
stage has at last entered into a really intimate and
vital relationship to life. That is why if the move-
ment be left unhampered from without one looks
with some confidence for a steady development of
drama, keeping pace with the development of social
life and thought. The movement, it is true, is only
beginning ; and yet, in such a play as The Benefit of
the Doubt, how incalculable the advance beyond any-
thing we could have dreamed of three years ago ! It
is far from a faultless, and scarcely an inspiriting,
piece of work. It does not come scatheless from the
very searching ordeal of criticism to which all plays
of any ambition are nowadays subjected. But it is to
be noted that all who speak of it, whether in attack or
defence, treat its leading characters, at least, as real
people, having a sort of substantive and independent
388 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
existence, such as we instinctively attribute to the
creations of the great novelists. How long is it since
we could say as much of any group of personages in
English drama? And The Benefit of the Doubt does
not stand alone. Mr. Pinero has given us also The
Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith; in The Triumph of the
Philistines Mr. Jones produced a play which, though
scarcely successful, was quite in the movement ; and
The Divided Way revealed in Mr. H. V. Esmond a
talent which I, for one, shall watch with vivid sym-
pathy and hope. Thus there is no lack of encourage-
ment in the record of, the year which shows Mr.
Pinero steadily advancing, Mr. Jones at least main-
taining his ground, and the younger generation, in the
person of Mr. Esmond, knocking resolutely at the
door.
Where, then, lies the danger foreshadowed above ?
Simply in this, that while the drama, as an intellectual
product, is rapidly progressing, the theatre, as a
practical mechanism for the publication, the giving
forth, of plays, remains absolutely stationary. No-
serious attempt is being made to provide at any single
point a loophole of escape from the inauspicious
commercial conditions which Mr. George Bernard
Shaw expounded so clearly in his introduction to the
THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1894. "The theatre," said
Mr. Shaw, "depends on a very large public, the
drama on a very [I should rather say a comparatively]
EPILOGUE. 389
small one. . . . Unless a London manager sees some
probability of from 50,000 to 75,000 people paying
him an average of five shillings a-piece within three
months, he will hardly be persuaded to venture [a
production]." Moreover, if the demand drops towards
the end of the three months and the play has to be
taken off, it is regarded as a check for the author and
manager, nay, almost a disaster; though a similar
result in the case of a novel would be recorded as a
monumental triumph. Thus the play which extracts
from the pockets of the public such a sum as would
amply content Mr. Meredith or Mr. Hardy and their
publishers, ranks as a dead and deplorable failure.
A play whose aggregate produce would mean brilliant
victory for Mr. Crockett or Mr. Ian Maclaren, ranks
as little better than a defeat for Mr. Pinero or Mr.
Jones. In order to be accepted as an unqualified
success, a play must bring in such sums as would buy
up half-a-dozen masterpieces by Mr. Hall Caine or
Miss Marie Corelli.
Stage-publication is necessarily somewhat more
costly than book -publication ; but the discrepancy
need not be so enormous as it is, or appears
to be, at present. While this state of things
continues, the drama must remain in subjection to
the tastes, if not precisely of the mob, at least of a
much larger public than can possibly be expected to
give steady support to thoughtful and artistic work.
390 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
So long as a play must make immediate appeal to
50,000 people if it is to escape positive failure, to
150,000 if it is to attain distinguished success, the
drama is hopelessly condemned to triviality and
mediocrity.
What we want is a method of stage-publication
which shall reduce by at least one-half the minimum
number of purchasers (so to speak) required to make
a play an honourable success, and shall afford the
chance of an intermediate fortune between utter failure
and instant and overwhelming vogue. In short,
we must have a mechanism which shall furnish us
with a middle term between the " boom " and the
" frost." That mechanism can be supplied only by a
repertory theatre, where unbroken runs shall be for-
bidden by the articles of association. And that
theatre, though it ought to be a self-supporting and
even an interest-paying concern, cannot be founded
without a considerable capital (or endowment-fund if
you will), so vested as to enable it to establish itself
as an art-institution, and form its traditions and its
public, before any direct pecuniary return is demanded.
The leaders of the stage must soon, in self-defence,
realise the necessity of such a theatre (or theatres);
and the necessity once admitted, the possibility will
forthwith become equally clear. Men who have once
felt the joy of free artistic creation cannot, if they
would, fall back again upon mere unrelieved pot-
EPILOGUE. 391
boiling. There will always be themes, of course,
which lend themselves to what may be called long-
run treatment, and these they will continue to treat
for the actor-managers and their leading ladies. But
they will presently recognise, if indeed they do not
already, that the finest themes and the subtlest
methods appeal to the public of from 25,000 to
50,000, not to the 150,000 multitude. The smaller
public is indeed growing, but not nearly so rapidly
as our dramatists are advancing in artistic seriousness
and competence. Some of them may perhaps hope,
by deliberately moderating their rate of advance, to
take the multitude forward along with them. I beg
them to banish the dream. Life is too short for any
such enterprise. The only plan is deliberately to cut
loose from the multitude, press on with the few (who
are not so very few) as fast and as far as our powers
permit, and leave the crowd to struggle after as best
it may. If our playwrights continue formally to bid,
in every effort, for a great popular success, they will
either sink back into insignificance (and that they
will find no less irksome than humiliating), or else
they must look to have their career chequered by the
doubtful successes which reactionary paragraphists
will make haste to describe and gloat over as failures.
A successful appeal to the 25,000 public would mean
neither disgrace nor beggary, but fame and a sub-
stantial profit. It is only when you cast your nets
392 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
for the 150,000, and land a bare fifth of them, that
you set the enemy chuckling over your loss of
prestige.
I have my doubts even of the financial policy of
staking everything upon the first run of a play which
has any sort of solid merit in it. In the course of
six or eight months, you kill, by exhaustion, the goose
that lays the golden eggs. There are many plays, of
course, which it would be folly to treat otherwise. If
you stumble on a Trilby, by all means squeeze it for
all it is worth while the " boom " lasts ; but I am not
at all certain that this is the far-sighted policy in the
case of a Mrs. Tanqueray or a Rebellious Susan. The
other day an old friend of mine returned to England
after a long sojourn in Vienna, where he had in some
degree lost touch of English matters and manners.
He called on me the day after the production of The
Benefit of the Doubt, and, having read some notices
of it, asked me to tell him about Mr. Pinero. I took
down from my book-case a dozen or so of that
writer's plays, and spread them before my querist on
the table. "Ah," he said, as he glanced over them,
" now which of these ought I to go and see ? " I
explained that none of them, except The Benefit of
the Doubt, was then being acted or likely to be soon
revived. "What!" 'he said, "have they all been
failures ? " I had some difficulty in making him
understand that lie was no longer in easy-goin
EPILOGUE. 393
Vienna, which ruminates its dramatic tit-bits, but in
feverish, gigantic London, which knows only two
methods of dealing with the theatrical viands offered
it to spit them out with contumely, or ravenously
to crunch them up in either case destroying them
once for all. There are, of course, exceptions to this
rule. Revivals do occur ; a second and even a third
bid is made for the favour of the multitude. But
as soon as the multitude ceases to crowd to- the
pay-boxes, the play ceases to exist. It has no chance
of living out its natural life, much less of putting on
immortality.
Again, the long-run system forces the playwright to
stake everything, practically, upon the hazards of the
first night and the first cast. These hazards have
always to be faced, but under the present system any
misadventure becomes absolutely irretrievable. Look,
for instance, at The Benefit of the Doubt. It would
be absurd to call this play a failure, but its ten weeks'
run was much shorter than might have been antici-
pated. What, then, was the reason? I believe a
certain falling-off in the last act had something to do
with it; but the main and obvious reason lay in the
extreme inadequacy with which three of the principal
characters were represented. At a repertory theatre
it might not, in this one season, have attained sixty
performances; it might perhaps have been played
three times a week for five or six weeks; but we
394 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
should all have looked forward to seeing it again next
season, re-studied, and, we might not unreasonably
hope, with the mistakes of the first cast corrected.
As it is, we may possibly, and even probably, never
have an opportunity of seeing that admirable second
act worthily performed in all its parts.
Yet again, the necessity for immediate appeal to the
multitude crushingly handicaps all untried and in-
conspicuous authors. Mr. Alexander, for instance,
produced Mr. Esmond's very remarkable play The
Divided Way. Much as I admired it, I could have
predicted its financial failure, and I dare say Mr.
Alexander himself was not a whit more sanguine.
Mr. Esmond, as an author, was unknown to the great
public, or known only through the rumour of a pre-
vious failure. There was nothing meretricious or
sensational in the piece itself, nothing to " set people
talking"; and in the cast there was no performer who
happened to be in momentary vogue. Therefore the
150,000 stolidly ignored the play, and the 25,000 had
no time to find out its existence. At a repertory
theatre, it would have been enabled to seek out its
affinities and might quite probably have attained an
encouraging success.
I believe, then, that interest and ambition will ere
long combine to make our leading dramatists cast
about for some method of formally repudiating their
alleged thraldom to that really non-existent despot
EPILOGUE. 395
the Average Playgoer. We are actually enslaved, not
by a definite external force, but by an error of language,
a vicious habit of thought. We persist in talking and
thinking of the Public, as though it were a tangible
entity, one and indivisible. Nothing could be more
misleading : the Public is a myth, or rather an inert
and negligible conglomeration of many and diverse
publics, some of which have scarcely an idea or a
taste in common. There is a public for every form
of art, except the merely tedious and puerile; but it is
not always easy, in an overgrown community, for the
artist to get at his public. Who can doubt that there
now exists, in this England of ours, a public sufficient
to support, and that liberally, the serious modern
drama which we have at last shown ourselves capable
of producing ? All it wants is a rallying-point ; and
that rallying-point must be provided by the initiative,
or at any rate with the active co-operation, of the
artists themselves. This is not the place to discuss
ways and means, or to consider whether the enfran-
chisement of the contemporary drama and the rational
cultivation of the classics can be brought within the
sphere of one enterprise. That would be the ideal
arrangement, and I see no reason why it should not
be practicable, even if it ultimately involved the com-
mand of more than one stage. But the main point is
to provide, as aforesaid, a theatre which shall abjure
in advance the principle of the long run, and shall
396 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
serve as a rallying-point for the intelligent public.
This public has neither to be created nor educated ;
it is ready-made and ready-educated, if only we can
appeal to it with spirit and judgment. What is
certain is that unless such an appeal can be made,
and that shortly, our boasted renascence is in a
parlous predicament. We have reached, or very
nearly, the limit of possible progress under existing
conditions; and the cessation of advance is the signal
for retreat.
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS,
1895.
BY HENRY GEORGE HIBBERT.
JANUARY.
2. A HAPPY THOUGHT: Play in One Act, by H.
Tripp Edgar. Revival at the Strand. Cast -.John Wentworth*
Mr. H. Tripp Edgar ; Jack, Mr. Edgar Stevens ; Freddy Wood-
peck, Mr. Dudley Cloraine ; A Stranger, Mr. Frank Stather \.
Kilty Wentworth, Miss Kate Ruskin.
3. AN IDEAL HUSBAND: Play in Three Acts, by-
Oscar Wilde. Haymarket. Cast: The Earl of Caversham,
Mr. Alfred Bishop ; Lord Goring, Mr. Charles H. Hawtrey ^
Sir Robert Chiltern, Mr. Lewis Waller ; Vicom'.e De Nanjac,
Mr. Cosmo Stuart ; Mr. Montford, Mr. Henry Stanford ; Phipps^
Mr. C. H. Brookficld ; Mason, Mr. H. Deane ; Footman, Mr.
Charles Meyrick ; Footman, Mr. Goodhart ; Lady Chiltern,
Miss Julia Neilson ; Lady Markby, Miss Fanny Brough ; Lady
Basildon, Miss Vane Featherston ; Mrs. Marchmont, Miss.
Helen Forsyth ; Miss Mabel Chiltern, Miss Maud Millett ;
Mrs. Cheveley, Miss Florence West. Withdrawn 6th April j
reproduced at the Criterion, I3th April ; withdrawn 2;th
April.
4. THYRZA FLEMING: Play in Four Acts, by
Dorothy Leighton (Mrs. G. C. Ashton Jonson). Terry's
(Independent Theatre). Cast : Colonel Rivers, Mr. Bernard
Gould ; Bertie Earnshaw, Mr. William Bonney ; John Heron,
Mr. George Warde ; Bobby Falkland, Mr. Harry Buss ; Jenks,
Mr. Osmond Shillingford ; Waiter, Mr. George Shepheard ;
398 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Pamela Rivers, Miss Winifred Frazer ; Theophila Falkland,
Miss Agnes Hill ; Jones, Miss A. Beaugarde ; Martin, Miss
Papton ; Chambermaid, Miss Louise Cove ; Thyrza Fleming,
Miss Esther Palliser.
5. GUY DOMVILLE: Play in Three Acts, by Henry
James. St. James's. Cast: Guy Domville, Mr. George
Alexander ; Lord Devenish, Mr. W. G. Elliott ; Frank Hum-
ber, Mr. Herbert Waring ; George Round, Mr. H. V. Esmond ;
Servant, Mr. Frank Dyall ; Mrs. Peverel, Miss Marion Terry ;
Mrs. Domville, Mrs. Edward Saker ; Mary Brasier, Miss
Evelyn Millard ; Fanny, Miss Irene Vanbrugh ; Milliners,
Miss Blanche Wilmot and Miss Lucy Bertram. Withdrawn
5th February. Preceded by TOO HAPPY BY HALF:
A Farce in One Act, by Julian Field. Cast : Eric Verner,
Mr. H. V. Esmond ; Jack Fortescue, Mr. Arthur Royston ;
James, Mr. E. Benham ; Maud Verner, Miss Evelyn Millard.
12. KING ARTHUR: A Play in a Prologue and Four
Acts, by J. Comyns Carr. Lyceum. Cast: King Arthur,
Mr. Irving ; Sir Lancelot, Mr. Forbes Robertson ; Sir
Mordred, Mr. Frank Cooper ; Sir Kay, Mr. Tyars ; Sir
Gawaine, Mr. Clarence Hague ; Sir Bedevere, Mr. Fuller
Mellish ; Sir Agravaine, Mr. Lacy ; Sir Percivale, Mr.
Buckley ; Sir Lavaine, Mr. Julius Knight ; Sir Dagonet, Mr.
Harvey ; Merlin, Mr. Sydney Valentine ; Messenger, Mr.
Belmore ; Gaoler, Mr. Tabb ; Morgan Lt Fay, Miss Genevieve
Ward ; Elaine, Miss Lena Ashwell ; Clarissant, Miss Annie
Hughes ; Spirit of the Lake, Miss Maud Milton ; Guinevere,
Miss Ellen Terry. After 3rd May " King Arthur" began to be
performed alternately with other plays.
14 AN INNOCENT ABROAD : Farce in Three Acts,
by W. Stokes Craven (first produced in the United Kingdom at
the Theatre Royal, Belfast, 9th November 1894). Terry's.
Cast: Tobias Pilkington, Mr. Edward Terry; Dick, Mr.
Leslie Kenyon ; Jack Summerville, Mr. Harcourt Beatty ; Dr.
Hanson, Mr. Jack Thompson ; Bill Bouncer, Mr. Ernest
Hendrie ; Dennis, Mr. George Belmore ; Mr. Knowles, Mr.
.Robert Soutar ; Wilber, Mr. Gerald Mirrielees ; Mrs. Pilking-
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 399
ton, Miss Kate Mills ; Lily, Miss Lily Desmond ; Cissy
Farnboroiigh, Miss Mackintosh ; Rose, Miss Jessie Danvers.
Withdrawn i6th March. Preceded by KEEP YOUR
OWN COUNSEL : Duologue, by Henry Bellingham and
William Best. Cast : Mr. Pickering, Mr. Sidney Brough ;
Dora, Miss Madge Mackintosh. Succeeded by HIGH LIFE
BELOW STAIRS : Farce in One Act, by the Rev. James
Townley. Cast : Duke's Servant, Mr. Edward Terry ; Sir
Harry's Servant, Mr. Ernest Hendrie ; Lady Bafts Maid,
Miss Madge Ray ; Lady Charlotte's Maid, Miss Madge
Mackintosh ; Lovell, Mr. Sydney Brough ; Freeman, Mr.
Leslie Kenyon ; Philip, Mr. Jack Thompson ; Tom, Mr.
Robert Soutar ; Kingsbox, Mr. G. Mirrielees ; Coachman, Mr.
T. Eames ; Cook, Miss Eily Desmond ; Chloe, Miss Blanche
Astley ; Kitty, Miss Jessie Danvers.
17. A PAIR OF SPECTACLES : Comedy in Three
Acts, adapted from the French by Sydney Grundy; revival
at the Garrick. Cast : Mr. Benjamin Goldfinch, Mr. John
Hare ; Uncle Gregory, Mr. Charles Groves ; Percy, Mr. Allan
Aynesworth ; Dick, Mr. Gilbert Hare ; Larimer, Mr. Charles
Rock ; Bartholomew, Mr. Gerald Du Maurier ; Joyce, Mr.
George Raiemond ; Another Shoemaker, Mr. Roger Roberts ;
Mrs. Goldfinch, Miss Kate Rorke ; Lucy Larimer, Miss Mabel
Terry Lewis; Charlotte, Miss Lilian Lee. Withdrawn 2nd
March. Preceded by FADED FLOWERS : Play in One
Act, by Arthur A'Beckett. Cast : Harold Beresford, Mr.
Arthur Bourchier ; Robert Elton, Mr. Scott Buist ; Bobbie,
Master Horace Terry ; Ada, Miss Violet Vanbrugh.
19. THE TABOO : Fantastic Opera in Two Acts, Libretto
by Mason Carnes, Music by Ethel Harraden (first produced at
Leamington, 22nd May 1894). Trafalgar. Cast : Papakaio,
Mr. Harry Paulton ; Timaru, Mr. Wilfred Howard ; Ranoro,
Mr. Kelson Truman ; Bigmoko, Mr. George Humphry; Septimus
Octopus Sharp, Mr. Wyatt ; Whangahia, Miss Helena Dalton ;
Wangathaia, Miss Maud Maude ; Whangayonda, Miss Bertha
Meyers; Waltatattka, Madam Amadi ; Orama, Miss Lettie Searle ;
Pateena, Miss Nellie Murray ; Kiwi, Miss Dorothy Wilmot ;
400 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Vestida de Culteria y Campania, Miss Lizzie St. Quinten.
Withdrawn 26th January. Preceded by THE HOUSE
OF LORDS. Cast: Henry, Duke of Hanover Square, Mr.
Charles Crook ; Halifax Finsbury, Mr. V. Drew ; Mr.
Murgatroyd, Mr. Frederick Seymour ; Emmeline, Miss Carrie
Fenton ; Lady Victoria Portobello, Miss Maud Maude.
26. PAPA'S WIFE: Duologue, by Seymour Hicks and
F. C. Phillips; Music by Ellaline Terriss. Lyric.
FEBRUARY.
2. AN ARTIST'S MODEL: Musical Comedy in Two
Acts, by Owen Hall ; Lyrics by Harry Greenbank ; Music by
Sidney Jones. Daly's. Cast : Adele, Miss Marie Tempest ;
Lady Barbara Cripps, Miss Leonora Braham ; Lucien, Miss
Nina Cadiz ; Jessie, Miss Marie Studholme ; Rose, Miss Kate
Cannon ; Christine, Miss Alice Davis ; Ruby, Miss Kate
Adams ; Violet, Miss Lettice Fairfax ; Geraldine, Miss Hettie
Hamer ; Amy Cripps, Miss Louie Pounds ; Jane, Miss Sybil
Grey ; Miss Manvers, Miss Nellie Gregory ; Daisy Vane, Miss
Letty Lind ; Rudolph Blair, Mr. C. Hayden Coffin; Sir George
St. Alban, Mr. Eric Lewis ; Archie Pendillon, Mr. Yorke
Stephens ; The Earl of Thamesinead, Mr. Lawrence D'Orsay ;
Algernon St. Alban, Mr. J. Farren Soutar ; Carbonnet, Mr.
Maurice Farkoa ; Apthorpe, Mr. Gilbert Porteous ; Maddox,
Mr. Conway Dixon ; Janus Cripps, Mr. E. M. Robson ;
Smoggins, Mr. W. Blakeley ; Madame Amelie, Miss Lottie
Venne. Transferred to the Lyric, 28th May; returned to
Daly's, 28th September. Still running.
4. THE BABES; OR, W(H)INES FROM THE
WOOD : Burlesque, by H. Paulton, written up to date by A. C.
Shelley. Revival at the Strand. Cast : Tessie, Miss Alice Ather-
ton ; Pattie Buttre, Miss Elaine Gryce ; Bertie Patchoulic, Miss
Mary Allestree ; Lady Buttre, Miss Ada Palmer ; Maude, Miss
Violet Neville ; Miss Specs, Miss Annie Gowarcl ; Victor, Miss
Fanny Davenport ; Reginald, Miss Agnes Pendennis; Margery,
Miss Pollie Bonheur ; Rosina, Miss Ray Vivian ; Clementina,
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 401
Miss Ida Young ; Qtteenie, Miss Patty Thornhill ; Sir Rowland
Bnflte, Mr. David James; Charlie Bunk, Miss Adeline
Vaudrey; Bill Booty, Mr. J. J. Dallas; Ralph Reckless, Mr.
Edgar Stevens ; Dr. Bohts, Mr. J. D. Saunders ; Police
Inspector, Mr. Holland; Djlly, Mr. Willie Edouin. "The
Babes " only ran a few nights.
5. MARGATE: A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts, by
Barton White (tentative afternoon performance). Terry's.
Cast : General Piercy, Mr. Leslie Kenyon ; Tooling Beck, Mr.
Richard Purdon; Arthur Vereker, Mr. Harcourt Beatty; Willie,
Mr. E. H. Kelly; Tobias Dodd, Mr. Robert Nainby; Stephens,
Mr. E. Dagnall ; Inspector of Police, Mr. Harry Norton; Police-
man, Mr. Henry Benton ; Helen Vereker, Miss Olga Kate Noyle ;
Mrs. Beck, Miss Dolores Drummond ; Kitty, Miss Amelia
Gruhn ; Pauline, Miss Ina Goldsmith ; Mrs. Stephens, Miss
Katie Neville ; Ma fame Tulipon, Mrs. B. M. De Solla ; Eliza,
Miss Jessie Danvers.
9. A LEADER OF MEN: Comedy in Three Acts, by
Charles E. D. Ward. Comedy. Cast : Robert Llewelyn,
M.P., Mr. Fred Terry; Lord Killamey, M.P., Mr. Will
Dennis ; Archdeacon Baldwin, Mr. Joseph Carne ; Louis
Farquhar, M.P., Mr. H. B. Irving; Morion Stone, M.P.,
Mr. W. Wyes ; Jack Carnforth, Mr. Sydney Brough ; Adolphus
Poole, Mr. Stuart Champion ; Llewelyn's Servant, Mr. J.
Byron ; Footman, Mr. M. Browne ; Lady Solway, Miss Le
Thiere ; Mrs. Alsager Ellis, Miss Alma Murray; Barbara
Deane, Miss May Harvey; Mrs. Dundas, Miss Marion Terry.
Withdrawn 8th March. -SOWING THE WIND was re-
vived on gth March.
13. THOROUGHBRED : A Comic Play in Three Acts,
by Ralph R. Lumley. Toole's. Cast : Lord Sandaoe, Mr.
John Billington ; The Hon. Blenkinsopp Carlingham, Mr.
Fitzroy Morgan ; John Rimple, Mr. J. L. Toole ; A. V.
Decker, Mr. C. M. Lowne ; Claude Nizril, Mr. Edward A.
Coventry; Jeb Tosh, Mr. George Shelton ; Jennings, Mr.
Frank J. Arlton ; Wokeham, Master Alec Boles ; The Hon.
Wilhelmina Carlingham, Miss Henrietta Watson ; Miss
26
402 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
rallingham, Miss Cora Poole ; Mrs. Rimple, Miss Kate
Carlyon ; Delia Rimple, Miss Florence Fordyce. Withdrawn
8th June ; reproduced (after a provincial tour) 3rd Septem-
ber ; finally withdrawn 8th September, when Mr. Toole's
tenancy of this theatre ended. (Mr. Toole's part was played
by Mr. Westland or by Mr. Rutland Harrington during
greater part of the London season.) Preceded by THE
SECRET. Cast : Dnpuis, Mr. H. Westland ; Valare, Mr.
C. Lowe ; Thomas, Mr. George Shelton ; Porter, Mr. C.
Brunton ; Cecile, Miss Kate Carlyon; Angelica, Miss Alice
Kingsley. Mr. George Grossmith gave his drawing-room enter-
tainment in association with "Thoroughbred" for some time.
14. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST:
A Trivial Comedy in Three Acts, by Oscar Wilde. St. James's.
Cast : John Worthing, Mr. George Alexander ; Algernon
Moncrieffe, Mr. Allan Aynesworth ; The Rev. Canon Chasuble,
Mr. H. H. Vincent ; Merriman, Mr. Frank Dyall ; Lane. Mr.
F. Kinsey Peile ; Lady Brackiiell, Miss Rose Leclercq ; The
Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax, Miss Irene Vanbrugh ; The Hon.
Cecily Cardew, Miss Evelyn Millard ; Miss Pi ism, Mrs. George
Canninge. Withdrawn 8th May. Preceded by IN THE
SEASON, a One Act Play by E. Langdon Mitchell. Cast:
Sir Harry Collingwood, Mr. Herbert Waring ; Edivard Fair-
burne, Mr. Arthur Royston ; Sybil March, Miss Elliott Page.
16. AN M.P.'S WIFE: A Play in Four Acts, adapted
from T. Terrell's novel, "A Woman of Heart." Opera
Comique. Produced for one week only. Cast : John Army-
tage, M.P., Mr. William Herbert; Sir Richard Macklin, Mr.
Frederick de Lara; Frank Everard, Mr. Rothbury Evans;
William Spat row, Mr. Percy Bell ; Alexander Jephson, Mr.
J. Hastings Batson ; Job Venables, Mr. E. Rochelle ; A Hire.i
Waiter, Mr. Adam Sp range ; Robert Fen-Mick, Mr. Charles
Glenney ; Ruth EJliott, Miss T. White ; Lady Cakott, Miss
Alexes Leighton ; Lucy '1 ravers, Miss Alice Dukes; Rose
Bellamy, Miss Ina Goldsmith; Elise, Miss Dorothy Lawson.
Preceded by A STAGE COACH, a Comedy in One Act, by
Frederick de Lara. Cast : Colonel Biimpus, Mr. E. Rochelle ;
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS.
Robert de Vere Trevelyan, Mr. Frederick de Lara; Mrs. Turtle-
dove, Miss Alexes Leighton ; May, Miss Alice Dukes ; Brown,
Miss Ina Goldsmith.
18. THE RED SQUADRON : Drama in Four Acts,
by J. Harkins, jun., and J. MacMahon. (Produced for copy-
right purposes on 9th August, 1894, at the Bijou Theatra,
Bayswater. ) Pavilion. Cast : General da Rotnacio, Mr.
Arthur Lyle ; Fiancisco, Mr. Charles Coleman ; Robert
Staunton, Mr. Edward O'Neill; Paul de Silveria, Mr. Royston
Keith; General Fonseca, Mr. Horace Mead; Horatio Framfton,
Mr. George V. Wybrow ; Harry Marlington, Mr. H. Buss ;
Santos, Mr. J. W. Selby ; Admiral D 1 Atom's, Mr. F. Sindall ;
Admiral Walker, Mr. P. Darwin ; Admiral von Weigand, Mr.
L. Courtney ; An Admiral, Mr. George Roberts ; Bacho,
Mr. A. Campion ; Jacko, Mr. Claude Warden ; Marie Silveria,
Miss Rose Meller; Therese, Miss Edith Giddens; Hope Staunton,
Mr. Clarence Shirley ; Martha Williamson, Miss Evelyn
Shelley.
MARCH.
2. GENTLEMAN JOE, THE HANSOM CABBY:
Musical Farce, Words and Lyrics by Basil Hood ; Music by
Walter Slaughter. Prince of Wales's. Cast : Gentleman
Joe, Mr. Arthur Roberts ; Lord Donnybrook, Mr. William
Philp ; Mr. Hughie Jaqueson, Mr. Evelyn Vernon ; Mr. Ralli
Carr, Mr. E. II. Kelly; William, Miss Clara Jecks; Dawson, Mr.
Eric Thome ; James, Mr. Picton Roxborough ; Mr. Pilkinglon
Jones, Mr. W. H. Denny ; Airs. Ralli Carr, Miss Aida Jenoure;
The Hon. Mabel Kavanagh, Miss Kate Cutler; Miss Lalage
Potts, Miss Sadie Jerome ; Miss Pilkinglon Jones, Miss Carrie
Benton ; Miss Lucy Pilkington Jones, Miss Audrey Ford ; Miss
Ada Pilkington Jones, Miss Ellas Dee ; Miss Amy Pitkington
Jones, Miss Eva Ellerslie ; Emma, Miss Kitty Loftus. Still
running.
2. DANDY DICK WHITTINGTON: Opera Bouffe,
by G. R. Sims and Ivan Caryll. Avenue. Cast : Sir Achilles
Fitzwarren, Mr. A. J. Evelyn ; Lady Fitzwarren, Mr. John
404 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
F. Sheridan ; Captain Fairfax, R.N., Mr. James Barr ; Larry
<y Bi annagan , Mr. Henry Wright; Koko Gaga, Mr. Robert
Pateman ; Angiiste, Mr. Frederick Vaughan ; 7'om, Mr. Harold
Patterson ; Fhra Maha, Mr. H. N. Wenman ; Alice, Miss Ethel
Haydon ; Lola, Miss Bertha Meyers; Sz Dee, Miss Grade
Whiteford ; Willasee, Miss Florence Levey ; Nnntahtari, Miss
Ellen Goss ; 'Chantawee, Miss Maude Fisher ; Jenny, Miss I.
Du Foye ; Zoe, Miss L. Lisle ; Nina, Miss Morgan ; Susan,
Miss Elcho; Song Kla, Mr. M'Bride ; Pining Tha, Mr. Shale;
Chanta Buree, Mr. Wilkes ; See Papal, Mr. Davies ; Dick
Whittinglon, Miss May Yohe. Withdrawn I3th July.
4. SAVED FROM THE SEA: Drama in Four Acts,
by Arthur Shirley and Benjamin Landeck. Pavilion. Cast :
Dan Ellington, Mr. Charles Glenney ; Jim Weaver, Mr. Harry
M'Clelland ; Peter Scalcher, Mr. Julian Cross ; Richard
Fenlon, Mr. Albert Marsh ; Billy Snooks, Mr. Maitland Marler ;
Jenkins, Mr. Trevor Warde ; Jack, Miss Gladys Whyte ; In-
spector Jennings, Mr. G. Webber ; Chaplain, Mr. George
Yates ; Head Warder, Mr. G. Lawrence; Second Warder, Mr.
Harris ; Nancy Ellington, Miss Beaumont Collins ; Mrs. Blake,
Miss Harriet Clifton ; Polly Blake, Miss Fanny Selby.
9. THAT TERRIBLE GIRL : Musical Farcical Comedy,
by J. Stephens. Royalty. Cast : Miss Clover Atkins, Miss
Hope Booth ; Miss Prudence Primrose, Miss Kitty Leefred ;
Mrs. Van Schooler, Miss Ida Hazledean ; Miss Pansy Van
Schooler, Miss Lillie M'Intyre; Mr. Phineas Chatterhawk, Mr.
Edward Lauri ; Mr. Horace Fairfax, Mr. J. R. Hatfield ; Dr.
Pilsbtiiy Barker, Mr. F. Glover ; Jack Babbitt, Mr. Wyvel ;
U. R. Slick, Mr. Douglas Hamilton ; Tim M'Swat, Mr.
Stephen Bond ; Silas Saltzer, Mr. George Giddens. With-
drawn 22nd March. Preceded by HER GUARDIAN: Come-
dietta, by J. R. Brown. (Originally known as " Love's Secret.")
Cast : Mr. Davenant, Mr. J. R. Hatfield ; Mr. Luttrell, Mr.
Wyvell ; Mr. Martineaii, Mr. Douglas Hamilton; Violet Fane,
Miss Ida Heron ; Miss Morant, Miss Leslie.
12. A LOVING LEGACY: Farcical Comedy in Three
Acts, by F. W. Sidney, originally produced in America.
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 405
Strand. Cast: Harry Kingsley, Mr. William H. Day;
Ed-ward Pommeroy, Mr. Oswald Yorke ; Savory Bird, Mr.
Alfred Maltby ; Terence, Mr. Mark A. Kinghorne ; Mohaffimed
El Tebkir, Mr. J. A. Rosier ; Mrs. O 1 Rourke, Miss Lizzie
Henderson ; Kitty O* Rourke, Miss May Whitty ; May^ Miss
Nancy Noel ; Susan, Miss Katie Lee. Transferred to the
Opera Comique I5th April, withdrawn 2Oth April. Preceded
by SALT TEARS : a Serio-comic Drama in One Act, by
T. VV. Speight. Cast : Ben Briny, Mr. H. R. Teesdale ; Phil
Shingle, Mr. Robb Harwood ; Jim Riley's Father, Mr. J.
M'Kenzie; Ruth Mayjield, Miss Olga Garland; Lady Janet
Trevor, Miss Ettie Williams.
13. THE NOTORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH : Play
in Four Acts, by A. W. Pinero. Garrick. Cast : The Duke
of St. Olpherts, Mr. John Hare ; Sir SandforJ Cleeve, Mr.
Ian Robertson ; Lucas Cleeve, Mr. Forbes Robertson ; The Rev.
Amos Winterjield, Mr. C. Aubrey Smith ; Sir John Broderick,
Mr. Joseph Carne ; Dr. Kirke, Mr. Fred Thorne ; Fortune,
Mr. Gerald Du Maurier; Antonio Pofpi, Mr. C. F. Caravoglia ;
Agnes, Mrs. Patrick Campbell (replaced on 15th May by Miss
Olga Nethersole) ; Gertrude Thorpe, Miss Ellis Jeffreys ; Sybil
Cleeve, Miss Eleanor Calhoun ; Nella, Miss Mary Halsey;
Hephzihah, Mrs. Charles Groves. Withdrawn I4th June.
15. A MAN'S LOVE: Play in Three Acts, adapted
from the Dutch of J. C. de Vos, by J. T. Grein and C. W.
Jarvis, originally produced at the Prince of Wales's Theatre on
25th June 1889 (a morning performance) ; now reproduced at
the Opera Comique (Independent Theatre). Cast : Frank
Upworth, Mr. Herbert Flemming; Georgie, Miss Mary Keegan ;
Emily, Miss Winifred Fraser ; Mary, Miss Jay Lupton.
Preceded by SALVE : a Dramatic Fragment in One Act, by
Mrs. Oscar Beringer. Cast : Desmond Ogilvie, Mr. William
Haviland ; Rex Ogilvie, Mr. Matthew Brodie ; Deborah Ogilvie,
Mrs. Theodore Wright.
23. THE BLUE BOAR: Farce in Three Acts, by Louis
N. Parker and Murray Carson (produced originally at the Court
Theatre, Liverpool). Terry's. Cast : Robert Honcydcw, Mr.
406 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Edward Terry; Cyril Strawthwaile, Mr. Harcourt Beatty ;
7^i? Griffin, Mr. George Belmore ; Boots, Mr. Leslie Kenyon ;
Dr. Prendergast, Miss F'anny Brough ; Mrs. Pounder, Miss
Alexes Leighton ; Millicent, Miss Madge M'Inlosh. With-
drawn aoth Ap-.il.
2$. IN AN ATTIC : Comedietta, by Wilton Jones. St.
James's. An afternoon performance. Cast : Arthiir Clarges,
Mr. Philip Cuningham ; Joe Dixon, Mr. W. II. Denny;
Rosalind, Miss Annie Hill.
25. Theatre de 1 CEuvre season began at the Opera
Comique. Productions: ROSMERSHOLM, L'INTBUSB,
PELLEAS ET MELISANDE, and SOLNESS LE CON-
STRUCTEUR.
28. FORTUNE'S FOOL : Monologue, by Henry Hamil-
ton. Haymarket.
APRIL.
4. THE NEWEST WOMAN: Musical Comedietta,
by Henry Chance Newton ; Music by Georges Jacobi. Avenue.
Cast : Girtonia Fitzgiggle, Miss Maud Holland ; Melchizedeck
[osser, Mr. Lytton Grey.
13. THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME: DramainFour
Acts, by Franklyn Fyles and David Belasco (originally produced
in the United States). Adelphi. Cast: Gene/ al Kennion, Mr.
F. H. Macklin ; Major Burlefgh, Mr. Charles Fulton ; Lieu-
tenant Hawkesworth, Mr. William Terriss ; Lieutenant Morton
Par.'ow, Mr. W. L. Abingdon ; Arthur Penwick, M.D., Mr.
E. W. Gardiner ; Private Jones, Mr. G. W. Cockburn ; John
Ladru, Mr. Julian Cross ; Dick Burleigh, Miss Dora Barton ;
Sergeant Dix, Mr. Ackerman May; RPGlynn, Mr. Richard
Purdon ; Andy Jackson, Mr. Edwin Rorke ; Kate Kennion,
Miss Millward ; Lucy Hawkesworth, Miss Hope Dudley; Fawn,
Miss Mary Allestree ; Witter 1 s Ann, Miss Marie Mont rose ;
Withdrawn loth August. During the run Miss Cynthia Brooke
succeeded Miss Hope Dudley, and Miss Nannie Comstock,
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 407
the "original" representative of the character in America,
succeeded Miss Marie Montrose.
13. WOMAN'S CAPRICE: Comedietta in One Act,
adapted by II. M. Lewis from the German of " Gott sei clank ;
cler Tisch ist gedeckt." Prince of Wales's. Cast : Captain
Flarenppe, Mr. Eric Thome ; Mr. 'St. John Finitely, Mr.
Evelyn Vernon ; William Jones, Mr. Picton Roxborough ; Mrs.
Flareuppe, Miss Adelaide Newton ; Mrs. St. John Finitely,
Miss Ellas Dee ; May, Miss Attie Chester.
15. FANNY: Farce in Three Acts, by George R. Sims
and Cecil Raleigh (originally produced at the Prince of Wales's,
Liverpool, 8th April 1895). Strand. Cast: Captain Gerald
O'Brien, Mr. J. L. Shine; Professor Barnabas Bixley, Mr. William
H. Day ; Kellaway, Mr. Owen Harris ; Saunders, Mr. T. P.
Haynes ; Harold Gregory, Mr. Osmond Shillingford ; Bob
Tapping, Mr. George Blackmore ; George, Mr. J. Mahoney ;
Joseph Barnes, Mr. Robb Harwood ; Flo. Baincs, Miss Lydia
Cowell ; Grace Dormer, Miss May Whitty ; Paquila O'Brien,
Miss Alma Stanley. Withdrawn ist June. Preceded by
THE BACKSLIDER: Duologue in One Act, by Osmond
Shillingford. Cast: Mis. Agatha Dolomite, Miss May Whitty;
Mr. Antony Dolomite, Mr. Osmond Shillingford.
15. THE WORKGIRL : Drama in a Prologue and Four
Acts, by George Conquest and Arthur Shirley. Surrey.
Cast: Frank Bel ton, Mr. Ernest Leicester; Natty Wobbs, Mr.
Arthur Conquest ; Silas Sephton, Mr. Frank Lister ; The Hon.
Edgar Drayton, Mr. John Webb ; Loo Genesis, Mr. George
Conquest, Jun. ; Tom Courtney, Mr. Fred Conquest; Keeley
Rendale, Mr. Charles Cruik?hanks ; Bob To.lge, Mr. T. Ger-
man ; Flash Fred, Mr. J. Miller ; Suds, Mr. W. Stevens ; Tosh
Tomson, Mr. W. Donne ; Joe Perks, Mr. H. Moore ; Richard
Bracknel', Mr. Arthur Hall; Watty Wibbles, Mr. J. O. Fraser ;
Dr. Pearson, Mr. Reuben Leslie ; Inspector Graham, Mr. W.
Biddle ; Alary Belt on, Miss Olga Kate Vernon ; Evelyn
Sephton, Miss Cissy Farrell ; Mrs. Wobbs, Miss E. Cardoza ;
408 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Jenny Wibbles, Miss Laura Dyson ; Madame Lamarshe, Miss
C. Percival ; Harriett, Miss Issy Behring ; Ria, Miss Amy
Dyson ; Liza, Miss M. Hall.
15. BEFORE THE DAWN: Play in One Act, by
Henry Byatt. Opera Comique. Cast: Sir John Radley,
Bart., Mr. Mathevv Brodie ; Sallie Gliberry, Miss Katie Lee;
Lena, Miss Ettie Williams ; Constable, Mr. H. R. Teesdale.
17. DELIA HARDING: Play in Three Acts, adapted by
Comyns Carr from the French of Victorian Sardou. Comedy.
Cast: Sir Arthur Studley, C.B., Mr. Cyril Maude; Cliie
Stndley, Mr. Fred Terry ; Stanley Ftench, Mr. Mackintosh ;
Julian Ormsby, Mr. Gilbert Farquhar ; Pe'dval Luinley, Mr.
Lyston Lyle; Sir Christopher Cat-stairs, Mr. Chandler; T/ie
Syndic of Bel/agio, Mr. Will Dennis ; Clerk to the Syndic, Mr.
Mules Brown ; Captain Simmonds, Mr. Blakiston ; Waiter,
Mr. J. Byron; Lady Carslairs, Miss Rose Leclercq ; Mis.
Venables, Miss Dorothy Dorr; Mrs. Emmeltne Jay, Miss Eva
Williams ; Janet Ross, Mrs. E. H. Brooke ; Servant, Miss
Fleming Norton ; Delia Haiding, Miss Marion Terry. With-
drawn 1 7th May.
18. THE LADIES' IDOL: Farcical Comedy in Three
Acts, by Arthur Law (originally produced at the Theatre Royal,
Bournemouth, a8th March, 1895). Vaudeville. Cast : Lionel
Delamere, Mr. Weedon Grossmith ; The Duke of Castleford,
Mr. Sydney Warden ; Lord Finch Cal'owdale, Mr. C. P. Little ;
Sir Simon Roebuck, Mr. Arthur Helmore ; Mr. Purley, Mr.
John Beauchamp ; Mr. Wix, Mr. Frederick Volpe ; Mr.
Kurdle, Mr. Thomas Kingston ; Mr. Beamish, Mr. Kenneth
Douglas; Simmons, Mr. L. Power; The Duchess of Castleford,
Miss Gladys Homfrey ; The Countess of CroombiiJge, Miss
Helen Ferrers; Lady Helen Fiant, Miss Esme Beringer; Lady
Eugenia Rostrevor, Miss R. Sergeantson ; Lady Boyce, Miss B.
Crawford ; Airs. Somerville S'liith, Miss Beatrice Hayden ;
Miss Minniver, Miss Alma Gordon ; Miss Dora Vale, Miss
May Palfrey; Mary, Miss A. Beet. Withdrawn 1 5th June.
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 409
25. BARON GOLOSH : Operetta Bouffe in Two Acts, ad-
apted from Maurice Ordonneau and Edmond Audran's " L'Oncle
Celestin," with additional numbers by Meyer Lutz (originally
produced at the Star Theatre and Opera House, Swansea,
I5th April, 1895). Trafalgar. Cast: Baron Go'osh, Mr. E.
J. Lonnen ; J\Ia>reau, Mr. Harry Paulton ; Gnstave, Mr. Scott
Russell ; Count- Acacia, Mr. Frank Wyatt ; Viscount Acacia,
Mr. George Humphrey; Ratinet, Mr. W. S. Laidlaw ; Hair-
dresser, Mr. Stanley Smith ; Tailor, Mr. V. M. Seymour ;
Bootmaker, Mr. T. F. Lovelace; Narcisse, Mr. Ernest Down;
Clementine, Miss Florence Perry; Pamela, Miss M. A. Victor;
Madame de BeTefontaine, Miss Violet Melnotte; Madelon,
Miss Alice Lethbridge ; Therese, Miss Delia Carlyle ; Dress-
maker, Miss Alwyn ; Florist, Miss Osland ; Madame Margerine,
Miss Maud Maude; Madame Gruyere, Miss Violet Ellacott ;
Madame Brie, Miss Eva Murton ; Countess Acacia, Miss Sylvia
Grey. Withdrawn 8th June. Preceded by A HAPPY
THOUGHT, a Play in One Act, by H. Tripp Edgar. Cast :
John Wentworth, Mr. H. Tripp Edgar; Jack Went-worth,
Mr. Stanley Smith; Freddy Woodpcck, Mr. W. S. Laidlaw; A
Stranger, Mr. Ernest Down; Kitty Went-worth, Miss Kate
Ruskin.
25. THE PASSPORT: Play in Three Acts, by B. C.
Stephenson and William Yardley (partly founded on Colonel
Savage's novel, My Official Wife}. Terry's. Cast : Ferdinand
Sinclair, Mr. Yorke Stephens ; Christopher Coleman, Mr. Alfred
Maltby; Bob Coleman, Mr. Roland Atwood; Al^y Grey, Mr.
Cecil Ramsey; Henty Harris, Mr. Compton Coutts; Pattison,
Mr. Richard Blunt ; Schmerkoff, Mr. J. L. Mackay; George
Greenwood, Mr. George Giddens ; Mrs. Coleman, Miss Fanny
Coleman ; Mildred, Miss Kate Tully; Violet Tracey, Miss
Grace Lane ; Markham, Miss Cicely Richards ; Mrs. Darcy,
'Miss Gertrude Kingston. Transferred to the Trafalgar (now
the Duke of York's Theatre), agth July. Withdrawn 24th
August. Preceded on 26th April by A WOMAN'S NO,
a Play in One Act, by Somerville Gibney.
27. VANITY FAIR: Caricature in Three Acts, by
G.W.Godfrey. Court. Cast : Lord Arthur Nugent, G.C.B.,
410 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Mr. Arthur Cecil ; The Duke of Berkshire, K. G. , Mr. Charles
Sugden ; Mr. Brabazon Tegg, Mr. William Wyes ; Harold
Brabazon Tegg, Mr. Nye Chart ; Sir James Candy, Mr.
Charles Fawcett ; Bertie Kosevere, Mr. A. Vane Tempest ;
Sir Richard Fanshawe, Mr. Wilfred Draycott; Villars, Mr.
Howa r d Sturge ; Smiley, Mr. W. Cheeseman ; Tea'.e, Q.C.,
Mr. F. Macdonnell ; Foreman, Mr. H. N. Ray ; Clerk of
Arraigns, Mr. Lane ; Bill Feltoe, Mr. G. W. Anson ; The
Viscountess of Castleblaney, Miss Granville ; Lady Jacqueline
Villars, Miss Helena Dacre ; Violet Brabazon Tegg, Miss
Nancy Noel ; Mrs. Chelwynd, Miss Frances Dillon ; Mrs.
Walronl, Miss Lucy Bertram; Mrs. Biabazon Tegg, Mrs.
John Wood. Withdrawn 27th July ; reproduced 23rd Sep-
tember ; withdraw;! 2nd November.
MAY.
I. A HUMAN SPORT : Drama in One Act, by Austin
Fryers. Globe. A morning performance. Cast : Herbert
Groves, Mr. Philip Cunningham ; Entile Foudrian', Mr.
Willon Heriot ; Olti Nip, Mr. James A. Welch ; Minnie,
Miss Katherine Glover ; Mrs. Chessle, Mrs. Theodore Wright.
4. BYEGONES: Play in One Act, by A. W. Pinero
(produced at the Lyceum on i8th September, 1880). Revival,
Lyceum. Cast: The Hon. Cutzon Gramshawe, Mr. Ben
Webster ; The Rev. Giles Horncastle, Mr. Haviland ; Pro-
fessor Giacomo Mazzoni, Mr. Sydney Valentine ; Bella, Miss
Ailsa Craig; Rnby, Miss Annie Hughes. Also A STORY
OF WATERLOO : Sketch by Dr. Conan Doyle. Corporal
Gregory Brewster, Mr. Irving; Sergeant Archie MacJonald,
R.A., Mr. Fuller Mellish ; Col. James Midwinter, Mr. Ben
Webster ; Nora Brewster, Miss Annie Hughes. Also
DON QUIXOTE: Piece founded on an incident in the
Romance by Cervantes, by W. G. Wills. Master QuixaJa,
Mr. Irving ; Sincho Panza, Mr. Johnson ; Father Perez, Mr.
Haviland; Pedro, Mr. Archer; A Peasant, Mr. Reynolds;
Muleteers, Messrs. Belmore and Rivington; An'onia, Miss
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 4! I
de Silva ; Maria, Miss Milton : Dulcinea, Mrs. Lacy ; An Old
Woman, Mr. Innes; Girls, Misses Foster, K. Harwood, and
Ailsa Craig.*
6. A NEAR SHAVE : Musical Farce, by G. D. Day,
Author, and Edward Jones, Composer. Court. Cast :
Ebenezer Add'eshaw, Mr. G. W. Anson ; Josiah Giggins, Mr.
II. O. Cleary ; Arabella Pe'.tifer, Miss Emmeline Orford.
6. THREEPENNY BITS: Farce by I. Zangwill
(originally produced at the Opera House, Chatham, 25th April,
1895). Garrick.
7. THE HOME SECRETARY: Play in Three Acts,
by R. C. Carton. Criterion. Cast : The Right Hon. Duncan
Tiendel, M.P., Mr. Charles Wyndham ; Sir James Hazlett,
Q.C., M.P., Mr. Alfred Bishop; Lord Blazer, Mr. David
James; Frank Trendel, Mr. Sydney Brough ; Capta ; n Chesnall,
Mr. Charles Brookfield ; Mr. Thorpe- Didsbury, M.P., Mr. H.
de Lange ; Rixon, Mr. H. Deane ; Morris Lecaile, Mr. Lewis
Waller; Rhoda Trendel, Miss Julia Neilson ; Lady Clotilda
Bramerton, Miss Dolores Drummond ; Esme Brainerton, Miss
Maud Millett ; Mrs. Thorpe-Didsbury, Miss Mary Moore.
Withdrawn aoth July ; reproduced at the Shaftesbury, 2nd
October ; withdrawn 9th November.
9. THE SKYWARD GUIDE : Drama in Four Acts,
by Mrs. Albert Bradbhaw and Mark Melford. Royalty.
An afternoon performance. Cast : Albert Penrose, Mr. Loring
Fernie ; Hamblen Templeton, Mr. Harry Mountford ; Wilfted
Barfoot, Mr. Frank Gordon ; Tipper, Mr. A. D. Pierpoint ;
Mr. Craven, Mr. Roy Byford ; Vernon Stiasse, Miss Jackey-
* Memorandum of repertory revivals: The Merchant of
Venice, I7th June; Faust, 24th June; Louis XL, 27th June;
Becket, 1st July; Much Ado About Nothing, 4th July; Charles I.,
nth July; The Lyons Mail, 12th July; The Corsican Brothers,
1 5th July ; Journeys End in Lovers Meeting, 1 7th July ; Macbeth ,
24th July; Nance Olil field, 27th July (last performance of the
season).
412 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
dora Melford ; Christian Slrasse, Mr. Mark Melford ; Joseph,
Mr. Robert Lintott ; Knubel, Mr. James Ashburn ; Peter, Mr.
Vincent Osborne ; Franz, Mr. Arthur Edmunds ; Mr. Beauley,
Mr. Vansittart ; Aleppa, Miss Ethel Payne; Adrea, Miss
Madge Lewis ; City Clerk, Mr. Cecil Rutland ; Paulio, Mr.
George Albertazzi ; Gendarme, Mr. George W. Abron ; The
Hon. Mrs. Penrose, Miss Ethel Arden ; Leonora Garth, Miss
Dora de Winton ; Flavia Strasse, Miss Annie Stalman ; Freda
Colefield, Miss Eva Willing ; Rosa, Miss Ida Heron ; Jennie,
Miss Gertrude Price; Martha, Miss Margaret Hayes.
it. THE TRIUMPH OF THE PHILISTINES;
and How Mr. Jorgan Preserved the Morals of Market
Pewbury under very trying circumstances : Comedy in
Three Acts, by Henry Arthur Jones. St. James's. Cast :
Sir Valentine Feilowes, Mr. George Alexander ; Willie Hessel-
tine, Mr. H. V. Esmond ; Mr. Jorgan, Mr. Herbert Waring ;
Mr. Pole, Mr. E. M. Robson ; Mr. Blagg, Mr. Ernest Hendrie;
Mr. Mod/in, Mr. Arthur Royston ; Mr. Skewitt, Mr. James
Welch; Mr. Wapes, Mr. H. H. Vincent; Mr. Corby, Mr.
Duncan Tovey ; Thomas Blagg, Master Frank Saker ; Wheeler,
Mr. Mark Paton ; Lady Bcauboys, Lady Monckton ; Alma
Suleny, Miss Elliott Page; Miss Angela Soar, Miss Blanch
Wilmot ; Sally Lebnine, Miss Juliet Nesville. Withdrawn
igth June. Revivals of THE SECOND MRS. TAN-
QUERAY on aoth June and of THE IDLER on 4th
July ensued.
13. THE RECKONING: Play in Four Acts, by
Silvanus Dauncey (originally produced at the Globe at an after-
noon performance, 3rd December 1891). Grand. Cast:
Captain Philip Con-way, Mr. Charles Glenney; Mr. Leach,
MT. Charles Dalton ; Sir William Deacon, Mr. Robert
Macdonald ; Frank Gibson, Mr. W. Graham Brown ; Dr.
AlcPherson, Mr. Arthur Rowlands ; The Rev. Samuel Oliver,
Mr. Horniman ; Rigby Nicks, Mr. Arthur Whitby; Slisher,
Mr. J. Willes ; Dnckett, Mr. R. E. Warton ; Dora Deacon,
Miss Marion Lind ; Mrs. Chilcott, Miss Pendennis ; Janet,
Miss C. Lindsey; Constance Oliver, Miss Alma Murray.
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 413
22. THE PRUDE'S PROGRESS: Comedy in Three
Acts, by Jerome K. Jerome and Eden Philpotts (originally
produced at the Theatre Royal, Cambridge, l6th May 1895).
Comedy. Cast : Adam Cherry, Mr. Edward Righton ; Jack
Medbury, Mr. \V. T. Lovell ; Ted Morris, Mr. Ernest
Leicester ; Theodore Trovers, Mr. Arthur Playfair ; Ben Dixon,
Mr. Cyril Maude ; Nelly Mortis, Miss Lena Ashwell ; Prim-
rose Deane, Miss Ettie Williams ; Airs. Wheedles, Miss Alice
Mansfield; Mrs. Ben Dixon, Miss Fanny Brough. Transferred
to Terry's Theatre ; withdrawn I4th September.
26. FEDORA: Sardou's Play, adapted into English by
Herman Merivale. Haymarket. Cast : Count Loris If an off,
Mr. Tree; Jean de Sin'ex, Mr. Nutcombe Gould; Piene
Boroff, Mr. Berte Thomas; M. Rouvel, Mr. C. M. Hallard ;
M, Fernet, Mr. Mackay ; M. Laioc/te, Mr. Edward Ferris;
Dr. Loreck, Mr. Edmund Maurice ; Gretch, Mr. Holman
Clark ; Bo.'eslas Lasinski, Mr. Leslie ; Tchileff, Mr. Charles
Allan; Desiree, Mr. Herbert Ross; Dmitri, Mr. Lesly Thom-
son; Kir ill, Mr. F. Percival Stevens; Princess Fedora Romazoff,
Mrs. Patrick Campbell ; Conn/ess Olga Soukareff, Mrs. Ban-
croft ; Baroness Ockar, Miss Hilda II anbury ; Madame de
Tournis, Miss Routh ; Marka, Miss Aylward. Mrs. Tree
eventually replaced Mrs. Campbell. Withdrawn 2oth July.
27. Madame Sarah Bernhardt's season at Daly's
Theatre began. Productions : GISMONDA, LA FEMME
DE CLAUDE, MAGDA, LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE,
LA TOSCA, IZEYL, and LA DAME AUX CAMELIAS.
JUNE.
3. Eleonora Duse's season of eight performances began at
Drury Lane. Productions: LA DAME AUX CAMELIAS;
LA FEMME DE CLAUDE; MAQDA ; CAVALLERIA RUS-
TIC ANA ; LA LOCANDIERA. On and after 2;th June,
Eleonora Duse appeared at the Savoy.
3. GOSSIP: Comedy in Four Acts, by Clyde Fitch and
Leo Dietrichstein. Grand. Cast : Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Langtry;
4H THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Mr. Barry, Mr. James W. Pigott ; Mrs. Stanford, Miss
Beverley Sitgreaves ; Mr. Stanford, Mr. Oscar Adye ; Miriam
Stanford, Miss Kate Bealby ; Mrs. Cuminings, Miss Clara
Daniells ; Clara Cuminings, Miss Frances Wyatt ; Dr. Robins,
Mr. A. Holmes-Gore ; Gas: on Berney, Mr. Ivan Watson ;
Hallows, Mr. Easton ; Servant, Mr. J. Topper ; Count Marcy,
Mr. Herbert Flemming. Preceded by a " trifle" in One Act by
Russell Vaun, entitled THE POLKA. Cast: Mr. Maxwell,
Mr. Ivan Watson ; Mr. Chester, Mr. A. Holmes Gore ; Mrs.
Chester, Miss Kate Bealby.
3. SETTLING DAY : Drama in Four Acts, by F. A.
Scudamore. Surrey.
3. THE FORTY THIEVES: Burlesque. Standard.
13. AN AVERAGE MAN; OR, HOW THE
AVERAGE BECAME THE ABNORMAL: Comedy
Drama of Modern Life in Four Acts, by "S. X. Courte"
(originally produced at the Pleasure Gardens Theatre, Folk-
stone, 6th March 1895). Opera Comique. An afternoon
performance. Cast : Vivian Allardyce, Mr. Loring Fernie ;
Robert Allardyce, Mr. Fred Grove ; John Allardyce, Mr. G.
R. Foss ; Arthur Ingersoll, Mr. Alfred Kendrick ; The Hon.
Bertie Thoytes, Mr. James Lindsay ; Montie Marlboroitgh, Mr.
Fred Permain ; Cecil Hampton, Mr. Hurdman-Lticas ; A Scout,
Mr. Hugh Bodien ; The Hon. Dolly Thoytes, Miss Kate Bealby;
Hilda Ffloyd Fanshawe, Miss Marjorie Griffiths ; Winifred
Dayne, Miss Dora de Winton.
15. A PRACTICAL JOKER : Comedietta, by C. L.
Hume. Comedy. Cast : Charles Dalrymple, Mr. Arthur
Playfair; Dawson, Mr. George Hawtrey; Adela Grey, Miss Doris
Templeton ; Sybil Forsyth, Miss Lena Ashwell.
15. Revival of A PAIR OF SPECTACLES and
A QUIET RUBBER at the Garrick; Mr. Hare's farewell
appearance.
17. First performance at Drury Lane of the Ducal Court
Company of Saxe Coburg and Gotha. Productions during the
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 415
season : DER VOGELHANDLER, DIE EERE, HASEMANS
TOCHTER, DIE FLEDERMAUS, HANSEL UND GRETEL,
HEIMATH VERKAUFTE BRAUT, DER WILDSCHTJTZ,
BERUCHMTE FRA.U, and DER FREISCHUTZ. Some per-
formances were also given at the Savoy by the dramatic section
of the Ducal Company of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, alternatively
with those of Eleonora Duse.
17. THE MINX AND THE MAN: Burlesque in Four
Scenes, written by Frank Lindo, Lyrics by W. Skelton, Music
by Thomas Prentis. Parkhurst. Also THE LEGACY:
a Comedietta by Frank Lindo.
17. A MODERN HYPATIA, by Mabel Collins (origin-
ally produced for copyright purposes at the Bijou Theatre,
Bayswater, 22nd February 1894). Terry's. Cast: Lord
Arthur Davenant, Mr. Edmund Gurney ; Lewin Alexis, Mr.
Acton Bond ; Sir George Martyn, Mr.' Frank Adair ; Francis,
Mr. Rudge Harding ; Dr. Vane Tylden, Mr. Charles Sugden ;
Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Mrs. Wilton ; Rose, Miss Edith Crauford ;
Mrs. Vane Tylden, Miss Agnes Hill ; Servant, Miss Eileen
Munro; Marcia Royal, Mrs. Theodore Wright. An afternoon
performance. Also TWO WOMEN, by "One of Them":
Dramatic Fragment. Cast : Lady Caroline Villiers, Mrs.
Theodore Wright ; Frank Villiers, Mr. Leslie Dehvaide ;
Valerie de Lonne, Mrs. Wilton ; Collins, Mr. Fenton.
24. THE TERROR OF PARIS: Drama in Four
Acts, by A. E. Hill-Mitchelson' and Charles Longden (origin-
ally produced at the Victoria Opera House, Burnley). Pavilion.
24. THE DEAD PAST: Drama, by Austin Fryers.
Parkhurst. Cast : Edward Crofton, Mr. H. K. Fraser-
Tyler ; Sir Maurice Hardy, Mr. Douglas Gordon ; Sarah,
Miss Emma Parry; Doll Barton, Miss Mabel Hardinge.
Also THE PICTURE-DEALER: Comedy in Three
Acts, by Henry Reichardt and Arnold Goldsworthy (per-
formed for copyright purposes at Ladbroke Hall on Thursday,
3<Dth June 1892, and played for the first time at a London
416 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
theatre at the Strand on 4th July 1892). Parkhurst Cast :
Ephraim Pottle, Mr. John Hudspeth ; Phil Tiptoff, Mr. Trevor
Warde ; The Rev. Simon Nocker, Mr. Gilbert Arrandale ;
Bartholomew Crisp, Mr. Maurice Drew ; Christopher Whiting,
Mr. H. Fraser-Tyler ; Samuel Huggins, Mr. James Francis ;
Mr. McPherson, Mr. George Brooke ; Biggs, Mr. Stanley
Grahame; William Scroggs, Mr. Algie Spalding ; A Warrant
Officer, Mr. A. S. Hardy ; Banker's Clerk, Mr. Edward
Wright ; Florrie, Miss Violet Austen ; Mrs. Tiptoff, Miss Maud
Stanhope ; Miss Nocker, Miss Emily Beauchamp ; Martha,
Miss Katherine Glover.
25. ALL OR NOTHING: Episode, by Hamilton Aide.
Criterion. Afternoon performance for a Charity. Cast : Sir
Henry Dashivood, Mr. H. Revelle ; Giulia, Lady Dashwood,
Miss E. Calhoun ; Servant, Mr. A. Royston.
25. THE RAILROAD OF LOVE: Comedy in Four
Acts, adapted by Augustin Daly from the German (originally
produced in London at the Gaiety on 3rd May 1888). Daly's.
Cast: General Everett, Mr. Edwin Varrey ; Lieutenant Howell
Everett, Mr. Frank Worthing; Phenix Scuttieby, Mr. James
Lewis ; Adam Grinnidge, Mr. George Clarke ; Judge Van
Ryker, Mr. Campbell Gollan ; Benny Dumaresq, Mr. Chester
Devon ne ; Tniffles, Mr. Robert Shepherd; Crusty, Mr. George
Wharnock ; Tom, Mr. Bosworth ; Mrs. Eutycia Labin nam,
Mrs. G. H. Gilbert ; Viva Van Ryker, Miss Sybil Carlisle ;
Cherry, Miss Jeanne Vorhees ; Valentine Osprey, Miss Ada
Rehan.
26. THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF MISS
BROWN : Farcical Play in Three Acts, by Robert Buchanan
and Charles Marlowe. Vaudeville. Cast : Miss Rotnney,
Miss M. A. Victor ; Angela Bright-well, Miss May Palfrey ;
EnpJieinia Schwartz, Miss Esme Beringer ; Matilda Jones,
Miss Daisy Brough ; Millicent Lovei idge, Miss Jay Holford ;
Clara Loveridge, Miss Grace Dudley; Mrs. G 1 Gallagher, Miss
Gladys Homfrey ; Emma, Miss Marion Murray ; Major
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 417
Cf Gallagher, Mr. J. Beauchamp ; Private Docherty, Mr. Power;
Hetr von Moser, Mr. Robb Harwood ; Mr. Hibbertson, Mr.
Gilbert Farquhar ; Sergeant Tanner, Mr. Lionel Brough ;
Capt. Courlenay, Mr. Frederick Kerr. Transferred to Terry's,
5th October. Withdrawn 8th February 1896. Preceded by
BETWEEN THE POSTS. Cast: Geoffrey Warburton,
Mr. John Buckstone ; Edith Neville, Miss Measor ; Lucy, Miss
Grace Dudley.
27. QWONG HI : Farcical Comedy in Three Acts, by
Fenton Mackay (originally produced 1st April 1895, at
the Princess's Theatre, Bristol). Terry's. Cast : Qwong Hi,
Mr. Willie Edouin ; Frank Brett, Mr. Stewart Champion ;
Fred Earle, Mr. Douglass Hamilton ; Captain Lander,
Mr. W. F. Hawtrey ; Roy Lander, Mr. Harry Eversfield ;
Verity, Mr. J. Graham ; Bailiff, Mr. A. Phillips; Mrs. Brett,
Miss Leslie Greenwood ; Miss Diction, Miss Helen Ferrers ;
Lydia Winlock, Miss Dora de Winton ; Clarke, Miss Annie
Go ward; Queenie Dimple, Miss Daisy Bryer; Nettie Merrydue,
Miss May Edouin. An afternoon performance.
JULY.
1. Madame Rejane began, at the Garrick Theatre, a
short season, during which she produced MA COUSINE
and MADAME SANS-GENE.
2. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. Daly's.
Cast : The Duke of Milan, Mr. George Clarke ; Proteus, Mr.
Frank Worthing ; Valentine, Mr. John Craig ; Sir Thurio,
Mr. Sidney Herbert ; Sir Eglantottr, Mr. Gerald Maxwell ;
Antonio, Mr. Edwin Varrey; Panthino, Mr. Charles Leclercq ;
Launce, Mr. James Lewis ; Speed, Mr. Herbert Gresham ;
Host, Mr. Tyrone Power ; The First Outlaw, Mr. Hobart
Bosworth ; Second Outlaw, Mr. Thomas Bridgland ; Third
Outlaw, Mr. Campbell Gollan ; Sylvia, Miss Maxine Elliot ;
Lucetta, Miss Sybil Carlisle ; Ursula, Miss Mallon ; Julia,
Miss Ada Rehan.
2 7
413 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
4. SAM'L OF POSEN : Comedy Drama in Four Acts,
by George H. Jessop. Gaiety. An afternoon performance.
Cast: Samuel Plaslrick, Mr. M. B. Curtis ; Mr. Winsltnv, Mr.
Colin Coop ; Frank Branson, Mr. Henry Vibart ; Jack Cheviot,
Mr. Sidney Brough ; Cuthbert Fitzurse, Mr. Lawrance D'Orsay;
Uncle Goldstein, Mr. Julian Cross ; Conn Quinn, Mr. Richard
Purdon ; Henry Dentatus Brown, Mr. Robb Harwood ; Snow-
ball, Mr. W. Edwards ; Mademoiselle Celeste, Miss Albena De
Mer; l\ebecca, Miss Mary Jocelyn ; Gladys, Miss Constance
Collier ; Mrs. Alulchay, Miss Kate Kearney ; Ellen, Miss
Kate Cutler.
8. FLIGHT FOR LIFE: Drama in Four Acts, by
F. A. Scudamore (originally produced under the title of "Our
El Dorado," at the Opera House, Northampton, 6th August
1894, and played under that name at the Pavilion, London,
the following week). Surrey.
9. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Daly's.
Cast: Theseus, Mr. George Clarke; Egeus, Mr. Tyrone Power;
Demetrius, Mr. Frank Worthing ; Lysander, Mr. John Craig ;
Philoslrate, Mr. Hobart Bosworth ; Quince, Mr. Charles
Leclercq ; Snug, Mr. Herbert Gresham ; Bottom, Mr. James
Lewis ; Flute, Mr. Sidney Herbert ; Snout, Mr. William
Sampson ; Starveling, Mr. Thomas Bridgland ; Hippolyta,
Miss Leontine ; Hermia, Miss Maxine Elliot ; Oberon, Miss
Sybil Carlisle ; Titania, Miss Percy Haswell ; A Fairy, Miss
Sofia Hoffman ; Puck, or Robin Goodfellovu, Miss Lillian Swain ;
Helena, Miss Ada Rehan.
15. A LONDON MYSTERY : Drama in Four Acts,
by William Bourne. Pavilion.
15. LOVE AND WAR: Comic Opera in Three Acts,
by Lawrence Olde and Basil Gotto ; Music by Evan Krefe
(originally produced at the Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, I7th
June 1895). Elephant and Castle. Cast : Admiral Horn-
blower, Mr. Harry H alley ; The Prince de St. Bris, Mr.
Wyndham Guise ; Col. Sir Everett Lascelles, Mr. Walter
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 419
Ashley ; Captain Sinclair Lascdles, Mr. J. Coates ; Vicomte
Rigaud, Mr. L. Wensley ; Phelim C? Tiger, Mr. Dan Fitz-
gerald ; Bottle Bill, Mr. Hampton Gordon ; Lady Lascelles,
Miss Sophie Harriss ; Jessie Hornbloiver, Miss Josephine
Findlay ; The Princesse de St. Bris, Miss Pierina Amelia ;
Maraquiia, Miss Nellie Cozens; Fanchette, Miss Susie Nainby;
Mrs, Jenkins, Miss Dora Birkett ; Kitty r . Miss Edith Hunter.
16. AFTER THE BALL: Operetta, by F. Kinsey
Peile. St. James's. Afternoon performance for a Charity.
Cast : Mrs. Cyprian Smith, Miss Marie Halton ; Mr. Cyprian
Smith, Mr. F. Kinsey Peile. Also OUR TOYS: An
Extravaganza, by W. Yardley.
20. A HOUSE OF LIES: Drama in Four Acts, by
Charles Hannan. Lyric, Hammersmith. Cast : Sir Sidney
Lee, Mr. J. R. Crauford ; Lady Lee, Miss Alice Ingram ; Eric
Lee, Mr. Charles Dalton ; Bertie Lee, Mr. Lennox Pawle ;
Eveleen Lee, Miss Edie Forster ; Edward Armstrong, Mr.
Charles Vane ; Madame Lorraine, Miss Grace Warner ; Mr.
Edgi.vorth, Mr. F. Lomnilz ; Jean, Mr. L. Lavater ; Paul
Gautier, Mr. Charles Warner. Preceded by DORA. Cast :
Farmer Allen, Mr, Charles Warner ; Will Allen, Mr. Charles
Vane; Luke Bloomfield, Mr. Charles Dalton; Dora, Miss Grace
Warner ; Mary Morrison, Miss Leah Marlborough ; Willy,
Miss Foster.
23. TWICE FOOLED : A Comedietta in One Act, by
" Lamda Mu." An afternoon performance. Gaiety. Cast:
Mrs. Parsons Green, Miss Phyllis Broughton ; Mr. Parsons
Green, Mr. George Mudie ; Penn Colomb, Esq., Mr. Eric
Lewis ; Nina, Miss Marie Halton.
27. QWONG HI : A Farcical Comedy, by Fenton^
Mackay. Revival at the Avenue. Cast : Qwong Hi, Mr.
Willie Edouin ; Frank Brett, Mr. Oswald Yorke ; Fred Earle,
Mr. Forbes Dawson ; Captain Lander, Mr. W. F. Hawtrey ;
Roy Lander, Mr. Kenneth Douglass; Verity, Mr. Ernest Cosham;
Bailiff, Mr. Forrester ; Mrs. Brett, Miss Helen Ferrers ; Miss
Diction, Miss Beatrice Day ; Lydia Winlock, Miss Florence
420 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Fordyce ; Clarke, Miss Lilian Millward ; Qiieenie Dimple, Miss
Daisy Bryer; Nettie Merrydue, Miss May Edouin. With-
drawn 1 7th August.
29. IN AN ATTIC: A Play in One Act, by Wilton
Jones. Revival at the Trafalgar. Cast : Arthur Clarges,
Mr. Guy Brandon ; Joe Dixon, Mr. Cecil Ramsey ; Rosalind,
Miss Mary Lind.
29. NANCY AND COMPANY: Farcical Comedy, by
Augustin Daly, based on a German piece. Revival at Daly's.
Cast: Mr. Ebenezer Griffing, Mr. James Lewis; Kiefe CfKiefe,
Esq., Mr. Frank Worthing; Captain Paul Renseller, Mr.
Sidney Herbert ; Young Mr. Sikes Stockslow, Mr. Herbert
Gresham ; Julius, Mr. William Sampson; Taffy Brasher, Mr.
Hobart Bosworth ; Miss Huldah Dangery, Mrs. G. H. Gilbert ;
Oriana, Miss Maxine Elliot ; Daisy Griffing, Miss Percy
Haswell ; Betsy, Miss Helen Bryant ; Nancy Brasher, Miss
Ada Rehan.
29. THE HONOUR OF THE HOUSE: Drama in
Five Acts, by H. H. Lewis. Pavilion. (Mr. C. W. Somerset
as Sebastian Ferara.)
29. VENGEANCE IS THINE: Drama in Five Acts,
by John Mills. Britannia.
A UGUST.
3. SAVED FROM THE SEA: A Melodrama in
Four Acts, by Arthur Shirley and Benjamin Landeck. Prin-
cess's. Cast : Dan Ellington, Mr. Charles Glenney ; Jim
Weaver, Mr. Austin Melford ; Peter Scalcher, Mr. Bassett
Roe ; Richard Fenlon, Mr. Frank Harding ; Billy Snooks, Mr.
Lionel Rignold ; Jenkins, Mr. Lennox Pawle ; Jack, Miss
Gladys White ; Inspector Jennings, Mr. George Claremont ;.
Chaplain, Mr. George Yates; Head Warder, Mr. Freeman;
Second Warder, Mr. Jameson ; Nancy Ellington, Miss Beau-
mont Collins ; Mrs. Blake, Miss Harriet Clifton ; Polly Blake^
Miss Fanny Selby.
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 421
5. THE WORLD'S VERDICT: A Drama in Five
Acts, by Arthur Jefferson. Surrey.
8. ALL ABROAD: A Musical Farce in Two Acts, by Owen
Hall and James T. Tanner ; Lyrics by W. H. Risque ; Music by
Frederick Rosse. Criterion. Cast : Mr. Bowles, Mr. Charles
E. Stevens ; Mr. Beaver, Mr. Horace Mills ; Baron Fontenay,
Mr. H. De Lange ; Ernest, Mr. John Coates ; Matirice Mewice,
Mr. C. P. Little ; Capshaw, Mr. Lionel Rae ; Skeggs, Mr. G.
Carroll ; Gendarme, Mr. Cecil Frere ; Adolphe, Mr. L. Johnson;
Tom Eltham, Mr. R. Lister ; Reggie Andale, Mr. C. Mills ;
Connie, Miss Kate Cutler; Blanche Leonide, Miss Amelia;
Chloe Feltop, Miss Nellie Thome ; May Aslor, Miss Lena
Brophey ; Madame Montesqtiieu, Miss Ada Reeve. Withdrawn
2nd November. Revived at Court, 2nd January 1896.
19. A YOUNGSTER'S ADVENTURE : Sketch in
One Act, by John S. Clarke. Strand. Cast : Kit Curtis, Mr.
Wilfred Clarke ; Ellen, Miss Nancy Noel ; Lady Lyster, Miss
Muriel Wylford ; Beckey, Miss Caroline Ewell. Also NEW
YORK DIVORCE : A Farce in Three Acts, adapted from
the French. Cast : Paul Roach, Mr. Wilfred Clarke ; Oliver
Goldcoyne, Mr. Arthur Wood ; Owen Cuttaway, Mr. Arthur
Helmore ; Peter Clincher, Mr. Oswald Yorke ; Casar Smash,
Mr. Rankin Duval; Selena Roach, Miss Muriel Wylford ; Maud
Eveltry, Miss Nancy Noel ; Honor Racket, Miss Marie Hud-
speth. Withdrawn i6th September.
19. A WOMAN'S VICTORY: Drama in Five Acts,
by W. A. Brabner. Pavilion.
19. CAMILLE. Revival at the Grand. Cast : Armand
Duval, Mr. Ernest Leicester ; M. Duval, Mr. W. Farren, Jun. ;
Gaston Rieux, Mr. Thomas Kingston ; Comte de Varville, Mr.
Luigi Lablache ; Gustave, Mr. George Humphery ; Doctor,
Mr. Graham Goring ; Sans Gaudens, Mr. Herbert Grimwood ;
Arthur, Mr. G. Merrilees ; Messenger, Mr. W. C. Postance ;
Footman, Mr. Thomas Courtice ; Servant, Mr. Pollak ; Madame
Prudence, Miss Alexes Leighton; Nanine, Miss Lilian Kingston;
422 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Nickettt, Miss Winifred Fraser ; Olympe, Miss Emmerson ;
Marguerite Gautier, Miss Olga Nethersole.
19. THE NEW BARMAID: Up-to-date Musical
Play in Two Acts, by Frederick Boarger and W. E. Sprange,
Music by John Crook (produced on ist July 1895 at the
Opera House, Southport). Metropole, Camberwell. Cast :
Captain Lovebury, Mr. Wilfred Howard ; Lieutenant Bradley,
Mr. V. M. Seymour ; Colonel Claymore, Mr. C. Wilford ; Bertie
White, Mr. Joseph B. Montague ; Bonsor, Mr. H. Conyers ;
Gussie, Mr. Michael Dure ; Inspector Hart, Mr. F. J. Walton ;
Club Porter, Mr. Harry Bishop; William White, Mr. A.
Alexander ; Lady Moulton, Miss Florence Lynn ; Dora, Miss
Julia Kent ; Mabel, Miss M. Johnson ; Kitty, Miss Elsie
Johnson ; Tommy, Miss Edith Denton ; Johnny, Miss Ethel
Tinsley ; Florrie, Miss Lily Johnson ; Effie, Miss Ada Peppiatte ;
Lily, Miss Gertrude Thomas; Maud, Miss E. St. Louin ; Elsie,
Miss Josephine Young; Alice, Miss Estelle Dudley; Gertie,
Miss Rosie Claire ; Brenda South, Miss Ida St. George ; Ethel
Joy, Miss Amy Augarde.
31. THE SWORDSMAN'S DAUGHTER : A Drama
in Four Acts, by Brandon Thomas and Clement Scott, adapted
from Le Maitre cT Amies, by Jules Mary and Georges Grisier.
Adelphi. Cast : Vibrac, Mr. William Terriss ; Jean Olgan,
Mr. Charles Fulton ; Baron de Chanloisel, Mr. Harry Nichols ;
Dr. Dubarry, Mr. J. R. Crauford ; Tommy Wilkins, Mr.
Julian Cross ; Jacquot Breton, Mr. Richard Purdon ; Judge
Melvil, Mr. G. R. Foss ; Count Henri de Rochfiere, Mr. W. L.
Abingdon ; Lieutenant Leverdier, Mr. Vincent Sternroyd ;
Marescot, Mr. Richard Brennand ; Leclair, Mr. Edwin Rorke ;
Maurice, Mr. Paul Berton ; San Melilo, Mr. A. W. Fitzgerald ;
Cartel, Mr. Webb Darleigh ; Prevot, Mr. Caleb Porter;
Abbe Roland, Mr. J. S. Blythe ; Madeleine, Miss Milward ;
Therese, Miss Vane Featherstone ; Mrs. Wilkins, Miss Mar-
riott ; Madame Breton, Miss Kate Kearney ; Lisette, Mrs.
E. H. Brooke ; Suzanne, Miss Mary Allestre ; Countess de
Floriel, Miss Madge Leighton. Withdrawn 3Oth November.
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 423
SEPTEMBER.
2. ALABAMA: A Play in Four Acts, by Augustus
Thomas, originally produced in America. Garrick. Cast :
Colonel Preston, Mr. James Fernandez ; Carey Preston, Miss
Agnes Miller ; Harry Preston, Mr. E. S. Willard ; Mrs. Page,
Miss Marion Terry; Lathrop Page, Mr. Cecil Crofton; Ray-
mond Page, Mr. Bassett Roe ; Colonel Moberley, Mr. John
Mason ; Atalanta Moberley, Miss Nannie Craddock ; Mrs.
Stockton, Miss Keith Wakeman ; Mr. Armstrong, Mr. W. T.
Lovell; Squire Tucker, Mr. F. H. Tyler; Decalur, Mr. H.
Cane. Withdrawn I2th October.
3. THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. Farcical Comedy.
Revival at the Avenue. Cast : Mr. Marsland, Mr. Nicol
Pentland ; Harry Marsland, Mr. J. L. Mackay; Mr. Catter-
mole, Mr. W. F. Hawtrey; Douglas Cattermole, Mr. Charles
Hawtrey ; The Rev. Robert Spalding, Mr. Willis Searle ; Mr.
Sidney Gibson, Mr. St. John Hamund; John, Mr. W. H.
Taylor; Knox, Mr. George Spencer ; Gardener, Mr. Mackenzie;
Edith Marsland, Miss Ada Mellon ; Eva Webster, Miss Evelyn
Harrison ; Mrs. Stead, Mrs. H. Leigh ; Miss Ashford, Miss
Caroline Elton.
7. THE CHILI WIDOW: A Comedy in Three Acts,
adapted by Arthur Bourchier and Alfred Sutro, from " M. Le
Directeur," by Alexander Bisson and Fabrice Carre. Royalty.
Cast: Sir Reginald Delamere, Bart., Mr. Arthur Bourchier;
Leslie Lavender, Mr. Cosmo Stuart ; Duckworth Crabbe, Mr.
W. Blakeley ; Frederick Martindale, Mr. Welton Dale;
Mathison Craw ley, Mr. Frank Lindo ; Cecil Fielding, Mr.
Charles Troode; Patrick CfDiuyer, M.P., Mr. Ernest Hendrie;
Macpherson, Mr. Mark Kinghorne ; Alfred Gentle, Mr. A.
Bromley Davenport ; William, Mr. Arthur Armstrong ; Boy,
Mr. S. Alexander ; Mrs. Jeffreys, Miss Sophie Larkin ; Gladys
de la Casa y Guales, Miss Violet Vanbrugh; Honor Bliss,
Miss Kate Phillips. Still running.
9. THE WINNING HAND : Drama in Five Acts, by
George Conquest and St. Aubyn Miller. Surrey.
424 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
9. DR. AND MRS. NEILL : Play in Three Acts, by Clo
Graves. Grand. Cast: Dr. Net II, M.D. Edin., F.R.S.,
Mr. Brandon Thomas; Renfrew Plunkett, Q.C., Mr. E. W.
Gardiner ; Edward Valancy, Mr. Oscar Adye ; Dr. Saundtrs,
Mr. P. Gromer ; Ellis, Mr. C. Montague ; Footman, Mr.
Stanley Preston ; Lady Carthew, Miss Beatrice Lamb ; Mrs.
Neill, Miss Kate Rorke.
9. BUTTERCUP AND DAISY: Musical Comedy in
Three Acts, by George Dance (originally produced at the Court
Theatre, Liverpool, 1 7th June 1895). Royal, Kilburn. Cast:
Theodore Goodwin, Mr. George Houghten ; Mrs. Goodwin, Miss
Deleval; Kitty, Miss Barry Eldon ; Flo, Miss Marie Dainton;
Ethel, Miss Phoebe Mercer ; Captain Cranbourne, Mr. George
Sinclair; Percy Dawson, Mr. Harold Eden; David Tompkinson,
Mr. Edmund Page ; Roberts, Mr. George Barran ; Liza Ellen,
Miss Louie Freear ; Dick Drake, Mr. T. P. Haynes ; Bessie,
Miss Jennie Dawson ; Josiah Snigg, Mr. A. Watts ; Cecil
Howard, Mr. Harry Walters.
10. BOGEY : A Play in Three Acts, by H. V. Esmond.
St. James's. Cast: Uncle Archie Buttanshaw, Mr. H. V.
Esmond ; Joseph Gradden, Mr. Fred Everill ; Jamie Mac-
lachlan, Mr. W. G. Elliot ; John Tiddy, Mr. Philip Cunning-
ham ; Noah Emens, Mr. Gaston Mervale ; Kennedy, Mr.
W. R. Staveley ; Marion Buttanshaw, Miss Ethel Matthews ;
Fairy Buttanshaw, Miss Eva Moore ; Maid, Miss Lovell ; Miss
Minden, Miss Pattie Bell. Withdrawn 2ist September.
16. IN A LOCKET: Farcical Comedy in Three Acts,
by Harry and Edward Paulton. Strand. Cast : General
Greville, Mr. Clinton Baddeley ; Garnet Greville, Mr. Harold
Child; Andrew Mallock, Mr. Laurence Cautley; Alfred Banner,
Mr. Scott Buist; Marler, Mr. Frank M. Wood; Comyns, Mr.
James Welch; Middleton Simpkin, Mr. Harry Paulton ; Judith
Simpkin, Miss Annie Hill; Elaine Ferris, Miss Gladys Evelyn;
Susan, Miss Julia Warden; Marian, Miss Amy Elstob; Cicely,
Miss Alice de Winton. Preceded by A HANDSOME
HUSBAND. Cast: Mr. Henry Wyndham, Mr. James
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 425
Welch ; Mr. Henry Fitzherbert, Mr. Clinton Baddeley ; Laura
Wyndham, Miss Agnes Paulton ; Amelia, Miss Ida Walland ;
Sophia Melford, Miss Amy Elstob ; Jane, Miss Winifred Wood.
Withdrawn 3Oth October.
16. TOMMY ATKINS: Drama in Four Acts, by Arthur
Shirley and Benjamin Landeck. Pavilion. Cast : Harold
Wilson, Mr. Murray Carson ; Colonel Hardwick, Mr. G. L.
Eveson ; Captain Richard Maitland, Mr. A. C. Lilley; Captain
Robert Sparrow, Mr. Royston Keith ; Sergeant Paddy Alolloy,
Mr. Martin Adeson ; Privctte Mason, Mr. G. W. Cockburn ;
Private Harris, Mr. Herbert Hamilton ; Ebenezer Skindle, Mr.
Fred Winn; Stephen Raymond, Mr. J. Nelson Ramsey; Thomas
Trot man, Mr. George Antley; Sir Simon Redgrave, f. P., Mr.
Bedford; Perkins, Mr. Norton Wilson; Arab Chief, Mr. C.
Ferry ; Jack, Mr. Bond ; Ruth, Miss Essex Dane ; Elsie
Wilson, Miss Rose Pendennis ; Margaret Maitlands, Miss
Rachel de Solla ; Kate Perkins, Miss Montelli ; Martha, Miss
Helen Rean ; Rose Selwyn, Miss Elsie Arnauld.
19. CHEER, BOYS, CHEER: A Drama in Five Acts,
by Sir Augustus Harris, Cecil Raleigh, and Henry Hamilton.
Drury Lane. Cast : Lady Hilyard, Miss Fanny Brough ;
Lady Ughtred Kesteven, Mrs. Raleigh ; Kitty Parker, Miss
Pattie Browne ; Mrs. Verity, Miss Marie D'Altra ; Mrs.
Chomondeley, Miss Fannie Ward ; Blanche Lindsey, Miss Eleanor
Calhoun ; The Marqttis of Chepstow, Mr. Henry Neville ; Lord
Archibald Kesteven, Mr. Sidney Howard ; George Hilyard, Mr.
Hamilton Revelle ; Reginald Fitzdavis, Mr. Charles Dalton ;
Wolff Meikstein, Mr. Lionel Rignold ; Oliver C. Brown, Mr.
George Giddens ; Cyrus Trueman, Mr. Austin Melford ;
The Rev. Mr. Nugent, Mr. William Rignold ; Forbes, Mr.
MacVicars ; John Knight, Mr. Tripp Edgar ; Miss Planquet,
.Miss Mowbrey ; Miss Vernon, Miss Kate Ruskin ; Miss Hen-
shaw, Miss Edie Farquhar ; Miss Fitzwilliam, Miss Gertrude
Green ; Mrs. Bradshaw, Miss Lydia Rachel ; Mrs. Bentley,
Miss Amy Abbott ; Hotel Clerk, Mr. De Groot ; Barmaid,
Miss Maud Francis ; Corporal Thompson, Mr. R. A. Lyons ;
Sergeant Btuklaw, Mr. Frank Damer ; Gibbens, Mr. Alfred
426 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Balfour ; Warder, Mr. Arthur Henden ; Jackson, Mr. C.
Danvers ; Policeman, Mr. Alfred Robert ; Porter, Mr. James
Francis ; Mr. Gordon Lee, Mr. Howard Russell ; Mr. Philip
Lee, Mr. A. Trevor ; Professor Schwinter, Mr. Herbert Char-
ante ; Signor Patrogilli, Mr. Court ; Sir Hilary Fanshaw, Mr.
Robert. Transferred to the Olympic, igth December. Still
running.
21. ROMEO AND JULIET. Revival at the Lyceum.
Cast : Prince Esealus, Mr. Joseph Carne ; Paris, Mr. Arthur
Grenville ; Montague^ Mr. Alfred Brydone ; Cafttlet, Mr.
George Warde ; Romeo, Mr. Forbes Robertson ; Mercutio, Mr.
Coghlan ; Benvolio, Mr. Frank Gilmore ; Tybalt, Mr. Will
Dennis ; Friar Lawrence, Mr. Nutcombe Gould ; Friar John,
Mr. Charles E. Senior ; Balthazar, Mr. T. P. Williamson ;
Sampson, Mr. Lennox Pawle ; Gregory, Mr. George Canninge ;
Peter, Mr. John Willes ; Abram, Mr. Charles Lloyd ; An
Apothecary, Mr. Ian Robertson ; Lady Montague, Miss Faber ;
Lady Capulet, Mrs. Edward Saker ; Juliet, Mrs. Patrick
Campbell ; Nurse, Miss Dolores Drummond. Withdrawn 2ist
December.
25. HARMONY : Domestic Drama in One Act, by Henry
Arthur Jones (originally produced, 1 3th August 1879, at the Grand
Theatre, Leeds). Royalty. Cast : Michael Kursman, Mr.
Mark Kinghorne ; Frank Seaton, Mr. Arthur Armstrong ;
Muggins, Mr. Charles Troode ; Jenny, Miss Ettie Williams.
26. HER ADVOCATE: Play in Three Acts, by Walter
Frith. Duke of York's. Cast: George Abinger, Q.C.,
Mr. Charles Cartwright ; Douglas Ferraby, Esq., Mr. Oswald
Yorke ; John Melcombe, Esq. , Mr. Holmes Gore ; Michael
Dennis, Esq., Mr. J. H. Barnes ; Dr. Mai-shall, Mr. C.
W. Somerset; Webby, Mr. Cecil Ramsey; Sergeant Black,
Mr. Willie Young ; The Hon. Mr. Justice Vesey, Mr. Frederick
Volpe ; Flack, Mr. Alfred Phillips ; Marker, Mr. D. Norman ;
Mr. Bodmin, Mr. S. Trevor ; Mr. Maclean, Mr. A. H. Lyons ;
Mr. Blackstone, Q.C., Mr. Lyston Lyle; The High Sheriff, Mr.
R. Vaughan ; The Chaplain, Mr. P. J. Hillier ; The Judge's
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 427
Marshal, Mr. F. W. Bedells ; Foreman of the Jury, Mr. A.
Collins ; Mrs. Field, Miss Gertrude Kingston ; Mrs. Melcombe,
Miss Henrietta Watson ; Blanche Ferraby, Miss Lena Ash well;
Female Warder, Miss Major. Withdrawn 3Oth November.
OCTOBER.
5. THE WRONG ADDRESS: Duologue, Anony-
mous. Duke of York's. Cast : The Hon. John Brampton,
Mr. Oswald Yorke ; Mrs. Alfred Franklin, Miss Henrietta
Watson.
10. POOR MR. POTTON: Farce in Three Acts, by
Clarence Hamlyn and H. M. Paull. Vaudeville. Cast :
Willoughby Potton, Mr. Weedon Grossmith ; Dick ffarrowby,
Mr. Wilfred Draycott; Professor Schmidt, Mr. John Beauchamp;
Tom Dash-wood, Mr. Tom Terriss ; Mr. Dawson, Mr. F.
Volpe ; Mr. Bait, Mr. Sydney Warden ; Mr. Kidby, Mr. F.
Saker ; Mrs. Dashwood, Miss Gladys Homfrey; Mrs. Potion,
Miss F. Haydon ; Catherine Dashwood, Miss May Palfrey ;
Pauline Dash-wood, Miss Annie Chippendale ; Barford, Miss A.
Dale ; Annie, Miss Alice Beet. Withdrawn 2nd December.
14. THE SCHOOL-GIRL: Comedy, by George Man-
chester, with music by Albert Maurice. Standard. Cast :
Professor Gainsbury, Mr. C. A. Russell ; Cyril Beresford, Mr.
Eric Ford ; Jack Gadsden, Mr. George M. Slater ; Timothy
O 'Flanagan, Mr. William Holies ; Lord Frederick Fitzjuggins,
Mr. Sidney Turner ; Algy Clayton, Mr. Hariy L. Wrenn ;
Policeman, Mr. H. Warren ; Montmorency, Mr. G. Sidney ;
Cheeks, Miss Louie Walters; Mrs. Allason, Miss Agnes Hewitt ;
Madge Gainsbury, Miss Ada Walgrave ; Bella Gadsden, Miss
Maud Noel ; Susannah St. Aubyn, Miss Maggie Hunt ;
Georgina Godolphin, Miss Nannie Goldman ; Aminta Armitage,
Miss Lottie Siegenberg ; Phillipa Plantagenet, Miss Ethel
Grace ; Frances Fitz-william, Miss Connie Nelson ; Hyacinth
Hamilton, Miss Grace Kelly ; Olga Oliphant, Miss Mary
Hulton ; Florence Fitzherbert, Miss Jenny Maxwell ; Beatrice
Bannerman, Miss Madge Lester ; Alice Argyll, Miss Ethel
428 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Hardacre ; Mabel Marmaduke, Miss Minnie Percival ; Maggie
Macgregor, Miss Edith Singlehurst ; Louisa Allason {Little Miss
Loo), Miss Minnie Palmer.
14. A LION'S HEART: a Melodrama in a Prologue
and Five Acts, by Arthur Shirley and Benjamin Landeck
(originally produced at the Parkhurst Theatre in July 1892,
now reproduced at the Princess's). Cast (Prologue): Pierre
Rizardo, Mr. Charles Glenney ; Louise, Miss Beaumont Collins ;
Gaspard Dobr?, Mr. William H. Day; Timothy Puggs, Mr.
Leslie Thompson ; Ring Master, Mr. Charles Baldwin ; Helen*,
Miss Kale E. Leslie. (Drama), Pierre Rizardo, Mr. Charles
Glenney; Colonel Robert de Villefort, Mr. E. Rochelle; Gaspard
Dobre, Mr. William H. Day; Dick Lorimore, Mr. George H.
Harker ; Jack Bealby, Mr. Maitland Marler ; Dobson, Mr.
Frank Harding ; Daddy Mason, Mr. George Yates ; Captain
Gavarnie, Mr. A. J. Byde ; Jean Loraine, Mr. George Clare-
mont ; Chariot, Mr. Charles Baldwin ; Pitou, Mr. Leslie
Thompson ; Marion Lorimore, Miss Beaumont Collins ; Gilbert,
Miss Josephine Woodin ; Bessie Lorimore, Miss Fannie Selby;
Sister Gertrude, Miss Harriet Clifton ; Madame Le Coeminant,
Miss Loveridge ; Louise, Miss Alice Vitu.
16. THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT: Comedy
in Three Acts, by Arthur W. Pinero. Comedy. Cast : Mrs.
Emptage, Miss Henrietta Lindley; Claude Emptage, Mr.
Aubrey Fitzgerald; Justina Emptage, Miss Esme Beringex;
Theophila Eraser, Miss Winifred Emery; Sir Fletcher Port'
wood, M.P., Mr. Cyril Maude ; Mrs. Cloys, Miss Rose Leclercq;
The Right Rev. Antony Cloys, D.D., Bishop of St. Olpherts,
Mr. Ernest Cosham ; Alexander Eraser, Mr. J. G. Grahame ;
John Allingham, Mr. Leonard Boyne ; Denzil Shafio, Mr. J.
W. Pigott ; , Peter Elphick, Mr. Stuart Champion; Horton, Mr.
Mules Browne ; Quaife, Mr. John Byron ; Olive Allingham,
Miss Lily Hanbury; Mrs. Quintan Twelves, Miss Eva Williams.
Withdrawn 27th December.
19. THE RISE OF DICK HALWARD : Play in
Three Acts, by Jerome K. Jerome. Garrick. Cast : Dr.
Halyard, Mr. F. H. Tyler ; Dick Halward, Mr. E. S. Willard;
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 429
Dan Graham, Mr. J. II. Barnes ; Reggie Philbrick, Mr. H. V.
Esmond ; Mr. Carruthers, Mr. H. Cane ; Mrs. Carruthers,
Miss Fanny Coleman ; Madge, Miss Marion Terry; Enid
Elphick, Miss Annie Hughes ; Valentine Carvalho, Mr. Bassett
Roe ; Henry Duve, Mr. W. T. Lovell ; Pamela, Miss Winifred
Fraser ; Servant, Miss Violet Almbruster. Withdrawn 9th
November.
28. THE BRIC-A-BRAC WILL: Comic Opera in
Three Acts. Libretto by S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald and Hugh
Moss ; Lyrics by S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald ; Music by Emilio
Pizzi. Cast : Dtike Erico Lantazaro, Mr. Charles Conyers ;
Antonio, Mr. Frank Wyatt ; Paolo, Mr. Harrison Brockbank ;
The Doge of Venice, Mr. J. J. Dallas ; Barnaba, Mr. E. W.
Royce ; Roberto, Mr. Frank H. Celli ; Beppo, Mr. Stanley
Patterson ; Mudillo, Mr. Watty Brunton, jun. ; A Watchman,
Mr. Horn Conyers ; Sylvia, Miss Kate Drew (eventually Miss-
Florence St. John) ; Chiara, Miss Susie Vaughan ; Lisette^
Miss Fanny Marriott. Withdrawn 28th December.
28. A TALE OF THE THAMES: Drama in Four
Acts, by George Conquest and Arthur Shirley. Surrey.
30. TRILBY : a Dramatic Version, by Paul M. Potter,
of George Du Maurier's Novel (originally produced in England
at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, on 7th September, now
reproduced at the Haymarket). Cast : Svengali, Mr. Beer-
bohm Tree ; Talbot Wynne, Mr. Edmund Maurice ; Alexander
M'Alister, Mr. Lionel Brough ; William Bagof, Mr. Patrick
Evans (eventually Mr. Henry V. Esmond) ; Gecko, Mr. C. M.
Hallard ; Zouzou, Mr. Herbert Ross ; Dodor, Mr. Gerald Du
Maurier ; Oliver, Mr. Berte Thomas ; Larimer, Mr. Guyer
Mackay ; The Rev. Thomas Bagot, Mr. Charles Allan ; Manager
Kaw, Mr. Holman Clark; Trilby ff Ferrall, Miss Dorothea
Baird ; Mrs. Bagot, Miss Frances Ivor ; Madame Vinard, Miss-
Rosina Filippi. Still running.
NOVEMBER.
I. THE LORD MAYOR: a "What you Will" in
Three Acts, by W. E. Bradley, Harry and Edward A. Paulton.
43O THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Strand. Cast : Sir Martin Marlow, Mr. Harry Paulton ;
Martin Marloiv, Junior, Mr. Scott Buist ; Miss Sabina Mar-
low, Miss Gladys Evelyn ; Miss Clarissa Mar low, Miss Agnes
faulton, The Hon. Richard Gratwick, Mr. Harold Child ; Lady
Muriel Grativick, Miss Amy Elstob ; Bristol, Mr. James
Welch ; Professor Grimweed, Mr. Laurence Irving ; Cora, Miss
Alice de Winton ; Alderman bobbins, Mr. Clinton Baddeley ;
Alderman Harris, Mr. E. Coventry ; Henry H. Morgan, Mr.
Newman Maurice ; Daniel B. Jackson, Mr. Stanley Betjemann ;
Inspector Handford, Mr. F. J. Waller; Gebel, Mr. C. Leigh ton;
Turner, Mr. E. Wilson ; Griffin, Mr. C. Mordan. Withdrawn
5th November.
2. MRS. PONDERBURY'S PAST: a Farce in Three
Acts, adapted by F. C. Burnand from Ernest Blum and Raoul
Toche's Madame Mongodin. Avenue. Cast : Matthew Ponder-
bury, Mr. Charles Hawtrey ; Mervin Thorp, Mr. Cosmo
Stuart ; John Rumford, Mr. J. L. Mackay ; Hyacinth Grayling,
Mr. Willis Searle ; Peter, Mr. W. F. Hawtrey ; Mrs. Ponder-
bury , Miss Alma Stanley ; Ethel Penistpn, Miss Ada Mallon ;
Susan, Miss Evelyn Harrison ; Countess de Mojeski, Miss
Lottie Venne. Still running.
5. THE SQUIRE OF DAMES: Comedy in Three
Acts, adapted from L'Ami des Femmes (Alexandre Dumas fils)
by R. C. Carton. Criterion. Cast : Mr. Kilroy, Mr. Charles
Wyndham ; Colonel Dennant, Mr. Frank Fenton ; Sir Douglas
Thorbiirn, Mr. Bernard Gould ; Lord Eustace Chetland, Mr. H.
de Lange ; Professor Dowle, F.A.S., Mr. Alfred Bishop;
Barnes, Mr. R. Lister ; Servant, Mr. C. Terric ; Mrs. Doyle,
Miss Granville ; Elsie, Miss Beatrice Ferrar ; Zoe Nuggetson,
Miss Fay Davis ; Adelaide Dennant, Miss Mary Moore. Still
running.
6. THE INTERVIEW: A Comedietta, by T. G.
Warren. Garrick. Cast : Martin Grange, Mr. W. T. Lovell ;
Natalie Morris, Miss Keith Wakeman. Preceding THE
PROFESSOR'S LOVE-STORY, now revived.
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 43 1
11. THE RIVALS : Sheridan's Comedy, revived at the
Court. Cast : Sir Anthony Absohite, Mr. William Farren ;
Captain Absohite, Mr. Sydney Brough ; Faulkland, Mr.
Charles Sugden ; Bob Acres, Mr. Arthur Williams ; Sir LTUIUS
O' Trigger, Mr. Brandon Thomas; Fag, Mr. H. Nye Chart;
David, Mr. W. Cheeseman ; Coachman, Mr. W. H. Quinton ;
Servant, Mr. F. Lane ; Boy, Mr. Chapman ; Lydia Languish,
Miss Nancy Noel ; Julia Melville, Miss Violet Raye ; Lucy,
Miss Marie Hudspeth ; Mrs. Malaprop, Mrs. John Wood.
Withdrawn 2ist December.
12. AN OLD GARDEN : A Play in One Act, by Hill
Davies (originally produced at Brighton, now reproduced at
Terry's). Cast : Mildred Sandford, Miss Mona Oram ; Rose
Harmer, Miss Doris Templeton ; David Brice, Mr. W. J.
Robertson ; Philip Melville, Mr. John Buckstone.
13. MERRIFIELD'S GHOST: A One-Act Play, by
H. M. Paull. Vaudeville. Cast: Thomas MenifieM, Mr.
F. Volpe ; John Gordon, Mr. Sydney Warden ; Will Gordon,
Mr. Wilfred Draycott ; Sylvia Merrifield, Miss Kate Sergeant-
son.
15. GIDDY GALATEA: Musical Skit in One Act, by
Henry Edlen ; Music by Edward Jones. Cast: Galatea Green,
Miss Minnie Thurgate; Phidias Phixum, Mr. Forbes Dawson ;
Pygmalion Potts, Mr. T. P. Haynes ; Daphne Potts, Miss Annie
Dovelley.
16. NANNIE: A Two-Act Comedy, by T. G. Warren.
Opera Comique (now re-opened under the management of Miss
Nellie Farren). Cast : Nannie Geen, Miss Emily Cudmore ;
Jessie Geen, Miss Emma Gwynne ; Rose Dadden, Miss Stella
-Lee; Eliza Boon, Miss F. Montgomery; Matthew Burge, Mr.
Edward Sass ; Sydney Wynne, Mr. Oscar Adye ; David Geen,
Mr. J. G. Taylor. Also A MODEL TRILBY: Burlesque
in One Act, by C. H. Brookfield and W. Yardley ; Music by
Meyer Lutz. Cast : Durien, Mr. Eric Lewis ; Svengali, Mr.
Robb Harwood ; Taffy, Mr. Farren Soutar; The Laird, Mr.
C. P. Little ; Little Billee, Mr. George Antley ; Jack, Mr. Fred
432 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Storey ; Thomas Bagot, Mr. E. H. Kelly ; The Stranger, Mr.
E. J. Scott ; Zouzou, Miss Millie Le Capelaine ; Dodor, Miss
May Romney ; Madame Vinard, Miss Helen Vicary ; Mrs.
Bagot, Miss Mary Stuart ; Mimi, Miss Eva Hamblen ; Musette,
Miss Greville Moore; Trilby, Miss Kate Cutler. "Nannie"
withdrawn 6th December ; " A Model Trilby " still running.
18. THE MANXMAN: A Play in Four Acts, adapted
by Wilson Barrett from Hall Caine's novel, and anonymously
revised. Shaftesbury. Cast : Philip Christian, Mr. Lewis
Waller ; Pete Quilliam, Mr. G. W. Cockburn ; Casar Cregeen,
Mr. James Fernandez ; Black Tom, Mr. Henry Kemble ; Ross
Christian, Mr. C. H. E. Brookfield ; Sir Edward Brook'anJ,
Mr. Hamilton Knight ; Mr. Farrant, Q.C., Mr. F. Percival
Stevens; Dr. Mylechreest, Mr. George Hippesley ; Kelly, Mr.
Lesly Thomson ; Jemmy Lord, Mr. H. Deane ; Inspector
Ballure, Mr. C. Goodhart ; Lady Brookland, Mrs. Arthur
Ayers ; Miss Cicely Cornwall, Miss Christine Mayne ; Nancy,
Miss Kate Phillips ; Bella, Miss Norbury ; Kate Cregeen, Miss
Florence West. Withdrawn November 3Oth.
23. THE DIVIDED WAY: A Play in Three Acts
(originally produced at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, on 3 1st
October, now reproduced at the St. James's Theatre).
Cast : General Humeden, Mr. W. H. Vernon ; Gaunt
Humeden, Mr. George Alexander ; Jack Humeden, Mr. Allan
Aynesworth ; Jay Grist, Mr. Herbert Waring ; Dr. Macgrath,
Mr. H. H. Vincent ; Mr. Swendal, Mr. E. M. Robson ; Kelly,
Mr. Frank Dyall ; Phyllis Humeden, Miss Violet Lyster ; Mrs.
Kelly, Miss Mouillot ; Lois, Miss Evelyn Millard. Also THE
MISOGYNIST, originally produced at Manchester, on 25th
October, as "The Woman Hater." Cast: Mr. Corquodale,
Mr. George Alexander ; Charlie Denison, Mr. Allan Aynes-
worth ; Royd, Mr. H. H. Vincent ; Kitty Denison, Miss Ellis
Jeffreys. Withdrawn 1 4th December.
30. A DANGEROUS RUFFIAN : Farce in One Act,
by W. D. Howells. Avenue. Cast : Edward Roberts, Mr.
W. F. Hawtrey; Wilks Campbell, Mr. J. L. Mackay ; Mr.
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 433
Bemis, Mr. W. Wyes; Dr. Bemis, jun., Mr. E. Halfield ;
Mrs. Crashaw, Miss Evelyn Harrison ; Bella, Miss Clayton ;
Mrs. Roberts, Miss Florence Harrington.
DECEMBER.
2. THE WOMAN IN BLACK : A New Version of
Wilton Jones's Drama, " Haunted Lives." Standard.
2. ONE OF THE BRAVEST: Musical Comedy-
Drama. Britannia.
2. THE BANDIT KING : Drama in Five Acts, by J.
H. Wallick. Pavilion.
2. THE WATER BABES: Operatic Extravaganza by
E. W. Bowles, Music by Merton Clarke. Parkhurst.
3. THE NEW BOY: Revival at the Vaudeville.
4. MR. VERSUS MRS: An Incident, by Arthur
Bourchier and Mountjoy. Royalty. Cast : Mr. Robert
Challenger, Mr. Arthur Bourchier ; The Hon. Mrs. Fealher-
leigh, Miss Violet Vanbrugh. Afternoon performance for^a
Charity.
7. MADAME : An " Absurdity" in Three Acts, by James
T. Tanner. Opera Comique. Cast: Mr'jGalleon, Mr. Eric
Lewis; George Baxter, Mr. Farren Soutar ; Denlon Jones, Mr.
James G. Taylor ; Captain Charles Cameron, Mr. Oscar Adye ;
Monsieur Vi-uienne, Mr. E. H. Kelly; Charlemagne, Mr. E. J.
Scott ; Jorkins, Mr. Horniman ; Inspector, Mr. Culverwell ;
Miss Baxter, Miss Kate Tindall ; Edith Galleon, Miss F.
Montgomery ; Madame Vivienne, Miss Helen Vicary ; Miss
Godolphin, Miss Emma Gvvynne. Still running.
II. KITTY CLIVE (ACTRESS) : Comedy in One Act,
by Frankfort Moore. Royalty. Cast : Kitty Clive, Miss Irene
Vanbrugh ; Jack Bates, Mr. Henry Vibart ; Landlord, Mr.
F. W. Permain.
16. THE NEW HUSBAND: Dialogue by Cotsford
28
434 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Dick. Haymarket. (An afternoon performance.) Cast:
Air. Heliotrope, Mr. George Giddens ; Mrs. Heliotrope, Miss
Fanny Brough ; Servant. Mr. Croxon.
21. ONE OF THE BEST : A Drama in Four Acts, by
Seymour Hicks and George Edwardes. Adelphi. Cast :
Dudley Keppel, Mr, William Terris ; Philip Ellsworth, Mr.
W. L. Abingdon ; Lieutenant- General Coventry, Mr. Charles
Fulton; Sir Archibald McGregor, K.C.B., A.D.C., Mr.
Edward Sass ; The Rev. Dr. Penrose, Mr. Julian Cross ; M.
/ules de Gruchy, M. L Delorme ; Private Jupp, Mr. Harry
Nicholls ; Sergeant Henessy, Mr. A. W. Fitzgerald ; Corporal
Smythe, Mr. Walter; Private (Hon.) Moniressor, Mr. Richard
Brennand ; Private Ginger, Mr. Cole ; Private Snipe, Mr.
Webb Darleigh ; Private White, Mr. Herrick ; President of the
Court, Mr. Hubert Parker ; Jason Jupp, Mr. H. Athol Forde ;
Esther Coventry, Miss Millward ; Mary Penrose, Miss Edith
Ostlere; Kitty Spencer, Miss Vane Featherstone ; Mrs. Spencer,
Miss Kate Kearney. Still running.
23. TOMMY ATKINS: A Drama in Four Acts, by
Benjamin Landeck and Arthur Shirley (originally produced at
the Pavilion Theatre, on l6th September, no'w reproduced
at the Duke of York's Theatre). Cast : Harold Wilson,
Mr. Charles Cartwright ; Stephen Raymond, Mr. Lyston Lyle ;
Ebenezer Skindle, Mr. Lennox Pawle ; Captain Richard Mait-
land, Mr. Edward O'Neill ; Captain Bob Sparrow, Mr. Wilfred
Forster ; Little Jack, Miss Jessica Black ; Colour- Sergeant
Paddy Molloy, Mr. Richard Purdon ; Private Mason, Mr. G.
W. Cockburn ; Colonel Hardiuick, Mr. Pemberton Peach ;
Perkins, Mr. Langley Handford ; The Arab Sheikh, Mr.
Gomer May ; Tommy Trotman, Mr. Harry Buss ; Private
Harris, Mr. Dalziel Heron ; Orderly, Mr. W. Richards ;
Surgeon, Mr. Douglas Norman ; Villager, Mr. Alfred Collins ;
Ruth Raymond, Miss Gertrude Kingston; Elsie Wilson, Miss
Constance Collier; Rose Selwyn, .Miss Clare Harford ; Mar-
garet Maitland, Miss Olliffe ; Kate Perkins, Miss Naomi
Neilson ; Martha, Miss Minnie Major. Withdrawn 3ist
December.
SYNOPSIS OF PLAYBILLS. 435
26. CINDERELLA: Pantomime by Augustus Harris,
Cecil Raleigh, and Arthur Sturgess. Drury Lane. Cast :
The Prince, Miss Ada Blanche; Cinderella, Miss Isa Bowman;
Dandini, Miss Alexandra Dagmar ; The Baron, Mr. Herbert
Campbell ; The Baroness, Mr. Dan Leno ; The Tutor, Mr.
Lionel Rignold ; Two Bailiff s Officers, The Griffiths Brothers;
Angelina, Miss Sophie Larkin ; Clorinda, Miss Emily Miller ;
The Fairy Godmother, Miss Lily Harold ; French Ambassador.
Miss Marguerite Cornille ; The Lord Chamberlain, Miss Maggie
Ripley ; The Demon ; Miss L. Comyns ; King Toy, Miss K.
Jocelyn ; The Spirit of Pantomime, Miss Helen Lee; Lord-in-
Waiting, Miss Lena Delphine ; Captain of the Guard-at-Arms,
Miss Harrison ; Master of the Ceremonies, Miss E. Pritchard ;
Alasler of the Horse, Miss M. Shields ; Prime Minister, Miss
V. Knight; Aide-de-Camp to the Prince, Miss M. Bryer; Ger-
man Ambassador, Miss A. Fricker ; Italian Ambassador, Miss
II. Hastings; Russian Ambassador, Miss Queenie Dudley;
Austrian Ambassador, Miss L. Feverell.
26. ROBINSON CRUSOE: Pantomime by Horace
Lennard, Music by Oscar Barrett. Lyceum. Cast : Immortal,
The Spirit of Adventure, Miss Geraldine Somerset. Mortals
Robinson Crusoe, Miss Alice Brookes ; Mrs. Crusoe, Mr. Victor
Stevens ; Dan I Hopkins, Mr. Richard Blunt ; Polly Hopkins,
Miss Grace Lane ; Will Atkins, Mr. Fred Emney ; Larboard,
Mr. Marius Girard ; Starboard, Mr. E. Morehen ; Captain
Truman, Miss Susie Vaughan ; Midshipmite, Miss Ida Muriel;
Sergeant of Marines, Miss Lilian Holmes; The Market Beadle,
Mr. Roy Kennett ; Oliver, Miss Mellor ; Randolf, Miss E.
Gibbons ; Geoffrey, Miss May Haddon; Mark, Miss L. Francis;
Nance, Miss M. Mount ; Dora, Miss Lena Lewis ; Maud, Miss
J. Chamberlain ; Margery, Miss L. Augarde ; Little Daisy,
Miss Ethel Grace ; Dog, Master L. Wilkes ; Goat, Master Edwin
Allen ; Parrot, Mr. A. Gough ; Cat, Master H. Linwood ;
Hullabaloo, Mr. Fred Storey; Chut-Nee, Mr. W. Ritter Riley;
Fiti-Fiti, Mr. Fred Kitchen; Talkee-Talkee, Mr. Zanfretta ;
Em-Cee, Mr. Harry Kitchen; Hanga-Mup, Mr. Philippe;
Tripfoot, Master Herbert Lamartine ; Nicee, Miss Florence
Herbert ; Picee, Miss Mary Norton ; Popsee, Miss Catherine
436 THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.
Williamson; Wopsee, Miss Blanche Dons; Ducksee, Miss
Pattie Marshall ; Kicksee, Miss Constance Gordon ; Princess
Pretti-Pretti, Mdlle. Zanfretta ; Friday, Mr. Charles Lauri.
27. A WOMAN'S REASON : Play in Three Acts, by
Charles H. E. Brookfield and F. C. Phillips. Shaftesbury.
Cast : Lord Bletchley, Mr. Charles Brookfield ; The Rev. Cosmo
Pretious, Mr. Henry Kemble ; Captain Crazier, Mr. Charles
Coghlan ; Stephen LfAcosta, Mr. Lewis Waller ; Algie, Mr.
Stewart Dawson ; Mr. Me George, Mr. Hamilton Knight ;
Martin Tutt, Mr. E. J. Malyon ; James, Mr. Leslie Thomp-
son ; Footman, Mr. Charles Goodhart ; Lady Bletchley, Miss
Carlotta Addison ; The Hon. Nina Keith, Mrs. Tree ; Agatha
Pretious, Miss Maud Millett ; Curtice, Miss Violet Stevens ;
Leah D'Acosta, Miss Florence West. Still running.
28. THE LATE MR. CASTELLO : A Farce in
Three Acts, by Sydney Grundy. Comedy. Cast : Captain
Treficsis, Mr. Leonard Boyne ; Sir Peto Wanklyn, Mr. Cyril
Maude ; Jack Uniacke, Mr. J. G. Grahame ; Spencer, Mr. J.
Byron ; Mrs. Bickerdyke, Miss Rose Leclercq ; Mrs. Castello,
Miss Winifred Emery ; Avice, Miss Esme Beringer. Still
running.
INDEX.
Adelphi, 119, 261, 378.
Avenue, 259, 336, 373.
Burlington Hall, 219.
Comedy, 47, 74, 128, 181, 313.
Court, 132, 253, 346, 384.
Criterion, 14, 144, 253, 337.
Daly's, 42, 184, 201, 209, 233,
234, 243, 384.
Drury Lane, I, 188, 201, 218,
301.
Duke of York's (see Trafalgar
Square), 303.
Gaiety, 132.
Garrick, 5, 37, 75, 161, 240,
267, 321.
Gray's Inn Hall, 366.
Haymarket, 14, 143, 172, 328.
Independent Theatre, 12, 95,
104.
THEATRES, ETC.
Lyric, 42, 188.
Lyceum, 3, 20, 137, 284, 384.
L'CEuvre, 104.
Opera Comique, 6l, 95, 104,
35i 377-
Prince of Wales's, 62, 72, 346.
Royalty, 94, 281, 377.
St. George's Hall, 37.
St. James's, 32, 56, 152, 218,
275 , 353, 364, 394-
Savoy, 218, 231.
Shaftesbury, 144, 328, 361.
Strand, 55, 95, 123, 260, 302,
335-
Terry's, 12, 35, 96, 135, 233,
366.
Theatre Royal, Brighton, 374.
Toole's, 60.
Trafalgar Square (see Duke of
York's), 135.
Vaudeville, 130, 233, 308.
PLAYS.
Alabama, 267.
All Abroad, 253.
All's Well that Ends Well, 37.
L'Am des Femmes, 337.
L'Arlesienne, 272.
Arms and the Man, 142.
The Artist's Model, 41, 188.
As You Like It, 224.
The Babes, 55.
433
INDEX.
PLAYS Continued.
The Bauble Shop, 148.
The Benefit of the Doubt, 313,
340, 387, 393-
Blue Beard, 56, 258.
The Blue Boar, 96.
Bogey, 275.
A Bunch of Violets, 147.
Cavalleria Rusticana, 209, 272.
Charlie's Aunt, 130.
Cheer, Boys, Cheer, 301.
The Chili Widow, 281.
The Comedy of Errors, 366.
The Crusaders, 153.
La Dame aux Camelias, 192.
A Dangerous Ruffian, 373.
Delia Harding (Marcelle), 128,
150.
Le Derm-Monde, 338.
The Divided Way, 353, 388, 394.
A Doll's House, 196.
Don Quixote, 137.
Die Ehre, 218, 227.
Fanny, 123.
Fedora, 172, 184.
La Femme de Claude, 188,
207.
The Fringe of Society, 338.
Gentleman Joe, 62, 72.
Ghosts, 69, 196.
The Girl I left Behind Me, 1 19.
Gismonda, 184.
The Greatest of These, 374.
Guy Domville, 32.
Hedda Gabler, 71, 197.
Heimat, 193, 227.
Her Advocate, 303.
High Life Below Stairs, 35.
The Home Secretary, 144, 328.
An Ideal Husband, 14, 147,
341-
The Importance of being
Earnest, 56.
In a Locket, 302.
An Innocent Abroad, 35.
In Town, 43.
L'Intruse, 109.
Izeyl, 185, 203.
John-a-Dreams, 143.
Julius Caesar, 224.
King Arthur, 20.
Kitty Clive (Actress), 377.
The Ladies' Idol, 130, 308.
The Lady from the Sea, 185.
Lady Windermere's Fan, 19, 147.
A Leader of Men, 47. '
Little Eyolf, 196, 197.
La Locandiera, 192, 209.
The Lord Mayor, 335.
A Loving Legacy, 95.
Ma Cousine, 240.
Madame, 377.
Madame Mongodin, 336.
Magda, 193, 227.
Le Maitre d'Armes, 261.
A Man's Love, 95.
The Manxman, 361.
The Master Builder, 105, in,
197.
Merrifield's Ghost, 352.
A Midsummer Night's Dream,
243-
The Misogynist, 364.
A Model Trilby, 351.
Monsieur le Directeur, 281.
An M.P.'s Wife, 61.
Mrs. Ponderbury's Past, 336.
Nannie, 351.
INDEX.
439
PLAYS Continued.
The New Boy, 130.
New York Divorce, 260.
The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith,
75, "7, 314, 388.
An Old Garden, 366.
One of the Best, 378.
A Pair of Spectacles, 37.
The Passport, 135.
Pauline Blanchaid, 185.
Pelleas et Melisande, 109, ill.
Phedre, 204.
The Pillars of Society, 71.
Poor Mr. Potton, 308.
The Pretenders, 199.
La Princesse Lointaine, 209.
The Prude's Progress, 181.
Qwong Hi, 259.
The Railroad of Love, 233.
The Rise of Dick Hal ward, 321.
The Rivals, 346.
Les Rois, 185.
Romeo and Juliet, 284, 295.
Rosmersholm, 105, 117, 197.
Salve, 95.
Santa Claus, 3.
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, 77,
93, 218, 314, 354, 392.
The Shop-Girl, 132.
Slaves of the Ring, 6.
Sodoms Ende, 227.
Solness le Constructeur, 105,
ill.
Sowing the Wind, 74.
The Squire of Dames, 337.
A Story of Waterloo, 137, 142.
The Strange Adventures of Miss
Brown, 233, 308.
The Swordsman's Daughter,
261.
That Terrible Girl, 94.
Theodora, 184.
Thorough-Bred, 60.
Thyrza Fleming, 12.
La Tosca, 184.
Trilby, 328, 392.
A Trilby Triflet, 346.
The Triumph of the Philistines,
152, 388.
Twelfth Night, 219.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona,
234-
Vanity Fair, 132.
Whittington and his Cat, I.
The Wild Duck, 197.
A Woman of no Importance,
10, 147.
A Youngster's Adventure, 260.
AUTHORS.
Barrett, Wilson, 361.
Belasco, David, 119.
Beringer, Mrs. Oscar, 95.
Bisson, A., 281.
Blum, Ernest, 336.
Bourchier, Arthur, 281.
Bradley, W. E., 335.
Brookfield, Charles, 352.
Buchanan, Robert, 233.
Burnand, F. C., 336.
Carr, Comyns, 20, 129.
Carre, , 281.
Carson, Murray ("Thornton
Clark"), 96.
Carton, R. C, 144, 328, 338,
440
INDEX.
AUTHORS Continued.
"Clark, Thornton" (Murray
Carson), 96.
Clarke, John Sleeper, 260.
Craven, W. Stokes, 35.
Davies, Hill, 366.
Doyle, Conan, 142.
Dumas, Alexandre, fils, 188,
196, 337-
Du Maurier, George, 133, 329.
De Vos, J. C., 95.
Edwardes, George, 377.
Esmond, H. V., 275, 353, 388,
394-
Frith, Walter, 303.
Fyles, Franklin, 119.
Gilbert, W. S., 59, 101, 256.
Godfrey, G. W., 132, 364.
Goldoni, Carlo, 192.
Greenbank, Harry, 44, 65.
Grisier, Georges, 261.
Grundy, Sydney ,-5, 37, 74, 374.
" Hall, Owen," 42, 68, 253.
Hamilton, Henry, i, 301.
Hamlyn, Clarence, 309.
Harris, Sir Augustus, I, 301.
Hicks, Seymour, 377.
Hood, Basil, 65.
Howells, W. D., 373.
Ibsen, Henrik, 68, 79, 104, 158,
194.
James, Henry, 32.
Jerome, J. K., 181, 321.
Jones, Henry Arthur, 68, 152,
164, 256, 386.
Law, Arthur, 130.
Leighton, Miss Dorothy, 12.
Lennard, Horace, 4.
Lumley, Ralph, 60.
Mackay, Fenton, 259.
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 109, nr.
" Marlow, Charles," 233.
Mary, Jules, 261.
Meilhac, Henri, 240.
Moore, Frankfort, 377.
Parker, Louis N., 96.
Paull, H. M., 309, 352.
Paulton, Edward A., 303, 335.
Paulton, Harry, 55, 302, 335.
Phillpott, Eden, 181.
Pinero, A. W., 59, 68, 75, 130,
161, 310, 354, 386, 392.
Planche, J. R., 255.
Potter, Paul M. , 133, 329.
Raleigh, Cecil, I, 125, 301.
Risque, W. H., 253, 258.
" Ross, Adrian," 43, 65, 68,
101, 258.
Rostand, Edmond, 209.
Sardou, Victorien, 128, 172.
Scott, Clement, 262.
Scribe, Eugene, 341.
Shakespeare, 37, 219, 234, 243,
284, 366.
Shaw, G. Bernard, 59.
Sheridan, R. B. , 346.
Sidney, Fred. VV. , 95.
Sims, George R., 125, 256.
Stephenson, B. C. , 135.
Sudermann, Herman, 193, 218,
226.
Sutro, Alfred, 281.
Tanner, James T., 253, 377.
Terrell, Thomas, 61.
Thomas, Augustus, 268.
Thomas, Brandon, 130, 262.
Toche, Raoul, 336.
INDEX.
AUTHORS Continued.
Townley, Rev. James, 36.
" Ward, Charles E. D.," 49.
Warren, T. G., 351.
Wilde, Oscar, 14, 56.
Wills, W. G., 138.
Yardley, W., 136, 352.
441
ACTORS.
Abingdon, W. L., 123, 267, 381.
Alexander, George, 34, 60, 161,
360, 365.
Anson, G. W., 135.
Antley, George, 352.
Aynesworth, Allan, 37, 60, 360,
'
Bancroft, S. B., 349.
Barnes, J. H. , 305.
Barrett, Wilson, 361.
Barrington, Rutland, 60.
Beatty, Harcourt, 95.
Beauchamp, John, 131, 233,
312.
Bishop, Alfred, 19, 345.
Blakeley, W., 41, 46, 284.
Bourchier, Arthur, 12, 283.
Boyne, Leonard, 321.
Brodie, Matthew, 96.
Brookfield. Charles, 19, 151.
Brough, Lionel, 233, 258.
Brough, Sydney, 55, 75, 151,
328-
Campbell, Herbert. 2, 97.
Capelli, Dante, 193.
Cartwright, Charles, 307.
Cecil, Arthur, 135.
Cheesman, W., 348.
Clarke, George, 244, 246, 250,
252.
Clarke, Wilfred, 261.
Coates, John, 259.
Cockburn, G. W., 123, 364.
Coffin, Hayden,-4i, 46.
Coghlan, Charles, 299.
Cooper, Frank, 32.
Coventry, E. A., 61.
Craig, John, 240, 252.
Cuningham, Philip, 281.
Dale, Welton, 284.
Dalton, Charles, 302.
Day, W. H., 127.
De Lange, H., 152, 259, 345.
Delorme, L., 381.
De Max, , 217.
Dennis, Will, 55, 300.
Denny, W. H., 65.
De Sanctis, Alfredo, 193.
D'Orsay, Lawrance, 46.
Edouin, Willie, 55, 259.
Elliot, W. G., 34, 281.
Emney, Fred, 4.
Esmond, H. V., 34, 161, 281,
327, 335-
Espinosa, Monsieu/, 4.
Evans, Patrick, 335.
Everill, F., 281.
Farkoa, Maurice, 46.
Farren, William, 347.
Fenton, Frank, 345.
Fernandez, James, 274, 364.
Forde, Athol, 381.
Fulton, Charles, 123, 267.
Gardiner, E. W., 123.
Garthorne, C. W., 75.
Giddens, George, 94, 136, 302.
442
INDEX.
ACTORS Continued.
Gillmore, Frank, 300.
Glenney, Charles, 61.
Gould, Bernard, 14, 345.
Gould, Nutcombe, 179, 300.
Grahame, J. G-, 321.
Gresham, Herbert, 240.
Grossmith, Weedon, 131, 312.
Groves, Charles, 37.
Guitry, , 217.
Hare, Gilbert, n, 37.
Hare, John, 7, 12, 37, 93, 97,
163.
Harwood, Robb, 127, 352.
Haviland, , 96.
Hawtrey, Charles, 19, 336.
Heimhoff, , 218.
Hendrie, Ernest, 35, 161.
Herbert, William, 6l.
Irving, Henry (afterwards Sir
Henry), 31, 97, 137, 142, 180.
Irving, H. B., 55, 75.
James, David S., 152.
Johnson, S., 140.
Kendal, W. H., 374.
Kerr, Frederick, 233.
Kinghorne, Mark, 284.
Klein, Adolf, 218, 231.
Lauri, Charles, 5.
Le Hay, John, 188.
Leicester, Ernest, 183.
Leno, Dan, 2, 98.
Lewis, Eric, 41, 46, 352, 377.
Lewis, James, 234, 240, 252.
Little, C. P., 131.
Lovell, W. T., 183, 275.
Lowne, C. M., 61.
Lugne-Poe, 108, no.
Mackay, J. L.. 136.
Mackintosh, W., 130.
Macklin, F. H., 123.
Maltby, Alfred, 136.
Mason, John, 275.
Maude, Cyril, 75, 130, 183, 321.
Mazzanti, Ettore, 193.
Mills, Horace, 259.
Morgan, Fitzroy, 60.
Neville, Henry, 302.
Nicholls, Harry, 267, 381.
Nye Chart, H. , 348.
Paulton, Harry, 303, 336.
Philp, William, 65.
Playfair, Arthur, 183.
Power, Tyrone, 252.
Righton, Edward, 183.
Rignold, Lionel, 302.
Roberts, Arthur, 64, 72, 268,
346.
Robertson, Forbes, 32, 93, 163,
284, 286.
Robertson, Ian, 300.
Robson, E. M., 46, 161.
Ross, Herbert, 143.
Saker, F., 312.
Shelton, B., 60.
Shine, J. L. , 127.
Somerset, C. W., 307.
Soutar, Farren, 352.
Stephens, Yorke, 46, 136.
Stevens, Charles E., 259.
Stevens, Victor, 4.
Sugden, Charles, 135, 348.
Terriss, Tom, 312.
Terriss, William, 123, 267, 381.
Terry, Edward, 35, 96.
Terry, Fred, 55, 130, 328.
Thomas, Brandon, 12, 75, 348.
Thorne, Eric, 346.
Toole, J. L., 60.
INDEX.
443
ACTORS Continued.
Tree, Beerbohm, 143, 179, 333.
Tyler, F. H., 275.
Valbel, , 342.
Valentine, Sidney, 32.
Vernon, W. H. , 360.
Vincent, H. H., 60, 360, 366.
Waller, Lewis, 19, 151, 328, 364.
Warde, George, 300.
Waring, Herbert, 34, 160, 360.
Weiss, , 218.
Welch, James, 161.
Willard, E. S., 274, 327.
Williams, Arthur, 349
Worthing, Frank, 234, 240, 252.
Wyes, W., 55, 135.
Wyndham, Charles, 151, 345.
Yorke, Oswald, 261, 308.
ACTRESSES.
Ash well, Miss Lena, 32, 183,
308.
Baird, Miss Dorothea, 334.
Bancroft, Mrs., 179.
Bell, Miss Pattie, 281.
Beere, Mrs. Bernard, 173, 179,
349-
Beet, Miss Alice, 312.
Beringer, Miss Esme, 131, 233.
Bernhardt, Sarah, 173, 179, 184,
201, 202, 217.
Booth, Miss Hope, 94.
Braham, Miss Leonora, 46.
Brooke, Mrs. E. H., 267.
Brough, Miss Fanny, 19, 96,
183, 302.
Browne, Miss Pattic, 302.
Calhoun, Miss Eleanor, n, 302.
Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 76, 90,
162, 172, 203, 219, 284, 288,
296.
Canninge, Mrs., 60.
Carlisle, Miss Sibyl, 240, 252.
Coleman, Miss Fanny, 136.
Cowell, Miss,Lydia, 127.
Cutler, Miss Kate, 259, 352.
Dacre, Miss Helena, 135.
Davis, Miss Fay, 345.
Despres, Mademoiselle, 107,
no, 113.
Dorr, Miss Dorothy, 129.
Drummond, Miss Dolores, 300.
Dudley, Miss Hope, 123.
Duse, Eleonora, 173, 179, 188,
201, 202, 231.
Edouin, Miss May, 260.
Elliot, Miss Maxine, 240, 252.
Emery, Miss Winifred, 97, 321.
Espinosa, Mademoiselle, 4.
Featherstone, Miss Vane, 267,
3.8i.
Filippi, Miss Rosina, 335.
Eraser, Miss Winifred, 14, 327.
Gilbert, Mrs., 234.
Hanbury, Miss Lily, 143, 147.
Harold, Miss Lily, 3.
Harvey, Miss May, 55.
Haswell, Miss Percy, 252.
Haydon, Miss F., 312.
Heinekey, Miss Lena, 41.
Hewett, Miss Agnes, 3.
Hill, Miss Agnes, 14.
Homfrey, Miss Gladys, 233,
312.
444
INDEX.
ACTRESSES Con 'imtetf.
Hudspeth, Miss Marie, 261,
348.
Hughes, Miss Annie, 327.
Jecks, Miss Clara, 4.
Je'ffreys, Miss Ellis, 365.
Jenoure, Miss Aida, 65.
Jerome, Miss Sadie, 65.
Kendal, Mrs., 219, 374.
Kennett, Miss Olive, 41.
Kingston, Miss Gertrude, 136,
3 oS.
Larkin, Miss Sophie, 284.
Lawrence, Miss Queenie, 3.
Lea, Miss Marion, 368.
Leclercq, Miss Rose, 60, 130,
321.
Leighton, Miss Alexes, 96.
Leontine, Miss, 252.
Le Thiere, Miss, 55.
Lewis, Miss Mabel Terry, 37.
Leyton, Miss Rosie, 4.
Lind, Miss Letty, 41, 45, 188.
Linden, Fraulein, 218.
Loftus, Miss Kitty, 4, 65, 346.
Lyster, Miss Violet, 360.
Marriott, Miss, 267.
Matthews, Miss Ethel, 281.
Mellot, Mile. Marthe, 107, no,
"3-
Millard, Miss Evelyn, 34, 60,
74, 218, 360.
Miller, Miss Agnes, 275.
Millet, Miss Maud, 19, 151, 328.
Millward, Miss, 123, 267, 379.
Monckton, Lady, 161.
Montrose, Miss Marie, 3, 123.
Moore, Miss Eva, 281.
Moore, Miss Mary, 151, 321,
345-
Morris, Mrs. Herbert, 41.
Murray, Miss Alma, 55.
Neilson, Miss Julia, 19, 147, 151,
328.
Nesville, Miss Juliette, 154.
Nethersole, Miss Olga, 76, 161.
Noel, Miss Nancy, 135, 348.
Oram, Miss Mona, 366.
Page, Miss Elliott, 157.
Palfrey, Miss May, 131, 233,
312.
Palliser, Miss Esther, 14.
Phillips, Miss Kate, 7, 12, 75,
284, 364.
Poole, Miss Cora, 61.
Raleigh, Mrs. (Miss Isabel Ellis-
sen), 302.
Raye, Miss Violet, 348.
Reeve, Miss Ada, 259.
Rehan, Miss Ada, 233, 236, 239,
252.
Rejane, Madame, 240.
Richards, Miss Cicely, 136.
Robins, Miss Elizabeth, 107,
368.
Rorke, Miss Kate, n, 37.
Stanley, Miss Alma, 127, 337.
Swain, Miss Lillian, 252.
Tempest, Miss Marie, 44, 46.
Terriss, Miss Ellaline, 131.
Terry, Miss Ellen, 26, 31.
Terry, Miss Marion, 34, 55,
129, 137-
Tree, Mrs. Beerbohm, 143, 172.
Vanbrugh, Miss Irene, 34, 60,
284, 378.
Vanbrugh, Miss Violet, 284.
Vaughan, Miss Susie, 4.
INDEX.
ACTRESSES
445
Venne, Miss Lottie, 41, 46,
328, 337-
Ward, Miss Genevieve, 32.
Watson, Miss Henrietta,6i, 308.
West, Miss Florence, 19, 363,
364-
White, MissT., 61.
Whitty, Miss May, 127.
Williams, Miss Ettie, 183.
Woisch, Frau, 218.
Wood, Mrs. John, 132, 347.
Zanfretta, Mademoiselle, 4.
MANAGERS, CRITICS, COMPOSERS, ETC.
Alexander, George, 199, 353,
394-
Aristotle, 261, 270.
Arnold, Matthew, 338.
Barrett, Oscar, 3.
Burne Jones, Sir Edward, 32.
Carr, Comyns, 47. 128.
Daly, Augustin, 234, 243, 384.
De Lara, Frederick, 61.
Dillon, Arthur (Elizabethan
Stage Society), 221.
Dolmetsch, Arnold, 366.
Ed \vardes, George, 41.
Elizabethan Stage Society, 219,
366.
Farren, Miss Nellie, 351.
Filon, Augustin, 256.
Harris, Sir Augustus, I.
Hazlilt, William, 39.
Irving, Mr. (afterwards Sir
Henry), 3, 20, 26, 180, 235,
383-
Jones, Sidney, 44.
Lamb, Charles, 285.
Lemaitre, Jules, 115, 117.
Lewes, George Henry, 349.
Lewes, Dr. Louis, 40.
Lugne-Poe, M., 114.
Lutz, Meyer, 352.
Matthews, Brander, 349.
Moore, George, 98.
Morell, H. H., 328.
Pigott, E. F. S. (Censor), 45,
66, 132.
Redford, George (Censor), 75,
123, 241, 343, 382.
Rosse, Frederick, 253, 259.
Sarcey, Francisque, 108, 194,
261.
Scott, Clement, 76.
! Shaw, G. Bernard, 49, 115,
215-
Slaughter, Walter, 65.
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 256.
Vitu, Auguste, 321.
Walkley, A. B., 113, 115, 193,.
296.
Ward, W., 352.
Wyndham, Charles, 337.
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PATRICK MAXWELL.
IN THE CANTERBURY POETS.
Square 8vo, Cloth, cut and uncut edges, Price is. per vol.
DRAMAS AND LYRICS OF BEN
JONSON. (Selected.) With an Essay, Biographical and
Critical, by JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. .
PLAYS OF BEAUMONTAND FLETCHER.
(Selected. ) With an Introduction by J. I. FLETCHER.
POEMS AND PLAYS OF OLIVER
GOLDSMITH. With Introductory Sketch, Biographical and
Critical, by WILLIAM TIREBUCK.
GOETHE'S "FAUST" (BAYARD TAY-
LOR'S TRANSLATION), with some of the Minor Poems.
Edited, with an Introductory Notice, by ELIZABETH CRAIGMYLE.
London : WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square.
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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
ArtD Archer, William
A6724th The theatricalSforld 1 of
1895